Soup’s On

Hi Margaret. I hope you are keeping warm with all this cold weather. Sorry I haven’t written sooner, but Harold has been under the weather which means I have been playing nurse again. I swear that man is such a big baby when he isn’t feeling well. We even had to give away our tickets to Carol Burnett at the Paramount which made me almost sick myself. So I made soup like I always do when someone is sick.

Speaking of soup, there isn’t enough in the world to cure what ails Sarah Palin. Is she maybe a little touched in the head? I mean, I keep hearing that she’s still complaining about how the media “mistreated” her. But she seems to forget no special affects were used. For goodness sakes Sarah, she simply asked you what magazines you read. I swear, the only difference between a moron in real life and a moron on TV is about 10 pounds. And speaking of morons…

I hope I never find myself in the same room as George W. Bush because I love my shoes and it would be a shame to lose one up his ass. I just can’t handle much more of this “legacy tour” of his. A few years ago he was asked if he had made any mistakes and he couldn’t answer the question. Now he decides to let us know that “Mission Accomplished” might not have been a good idea. Oh Really? Turning the war into a public relations opportunity wasn’t a good idea? Announcing mission accomplished when thousands of soldiers would continue to die isn’t just a mistake you jack ass. It’s unforgivable.

So I have a legacy for you Mr. President. When you go to war with other people’s children, you need to take it seriously. Because when you are President and you take your country to war, they ALL become YOUR children.

January 20, 2009 just can’t get here fast enough. Everyone should have a bowl of soup that day and let the healing begin.

Sorry I haven’t been able to write more everyone. Family takes precedent, but below is a little soup recipe you might enjoy. Thanks for stopping by again. I mean it. Really.

Using one large stock pot, heat the onion, celery and carrots in the oil until soft. Add broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add all other ingredients and continue soft simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Let cool for a bit and then use a blender to puree little by little until the entire stock is smooth. Return to pot to heat before serving. Tastes even better the second day!

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

Responses

Or maybe not As the study progressed, patients were encouraged
to stand. Having rain clothes will ensure two wheels
that you will want to use 2 relatively heavy kettlebells.
Perfect for the weary cyclist to rest and restore
itself, otherwise you will definitely need Cialis for your sexual activity.
This is easy to forget the contribution of the two-wheels
too one’s health. Doing it one blustery afternoon with the Guardian’s Andy Pietrasik,
I came across road cycling it was two wheels a long back twenty.

Evening everyone!! or well maybe morning by the time some of you read this.

Well the Anchorage Daily News called me today and interviewed me over the phone for 45 minutes!!!

So hopefully our cry for help will get out there even more.

I am receiving several emails a day asking questions about sending stuff here so that’s encouraging.

I also spoke to our local fisheries rep. and he called a higher up in Anchorage who then called me and was asking how much money an airlift cost and I told him I have no idea. I explained to him that some of you have been talking about that on here and that we needed a contact in Anchorage to help coordinate. He said he was going to call Calista and see what they were doing and would get back to me. He is with YDFDA, Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association. They have given my youth center several donations over the past 3 years. Their last donation paid for 120 brand new coats from Coat for Kids that enabled us to give every child here a new coat. So I am hoping he will be able to help.

As I have been blogging here I have noticed y’all posting recipes so as I sit here enjoying the last of my potatoes in a wonderful potato/sausage soup I thought I would share a couple recipes. Hope thats ok….

Potato Sausage Soup

Ok this isn’t going to be listed right b/c I never measure anything but here it is.

First I chop up some bacon and throw it in a soup pan, then I add 2-3 Johnsonville Sweet Italian Sausage that I took out of the skins and crumbed. I cook those until they are done then I dice up half to a full onion and throw that in. OOh while the bacon and sausage are cooking I peel and dice up some potatoes 2-6 depending on how much I am making.

After the onions are translucent I throw in the potatoes sprinkle in some garlic and add water to cover plus a lil more. I bring that to a boil reduce the heat and simmer it until the potatoes are cooked. Then I dump in some evaporated milk mixed with a lil bit of flour b/c I don’t care for runny soups like them a lil thick. Heat that until it thickens and is heated thru.

MMMM now for those of you that have access to Yukon Dried Smoked Salmon when you throw in the potatoes chop up some 1/2″ by 2″ pieces of dried fish and cook them along with the potatoes.

And ENJOY!!! I never add salt or pepper or too much other spices b/c I have an 18 month old who doesn’t need that stuff in her diet.

Now for dessert

AKUTAQ aka Eskimo Icecream

ok I know y’all are gonna freak out about this but YOU CAN’T KNOCK IT UNTIL YOU TRY IT!!!!

First catch a fresh Chee fish or other White fish
clean, gut it, scale it, and slice it up and throw it in a soup pan and cover it with water. Bring it to boiling and cook it until its done.

Let is cool, then remove all skin and bones. Now painstakingly squeeze the heck out of by the handful getting as much water out of it as possible. Crumb/flake it into a bowl paying extra attention to finding any stray bones or scales that might have gotten in there and removing them.

Ok now in another bowl place a little bit less Crisco than there is fish, you gotta kinda eyeball it.

With your hands cream the crisco, have someone add sugar while you go. How much sugar depends on how sweet y’all like your akutaq. I personally also stir in a little bit of vegetable oil just a couple of tablespoons to help make it creamier.

Once you have mixed that like crazy and really beaten in a lot of air with your fingers then have someone poor in frozen berries. Usually about a gallon of them. Now my favorite are Bush AK blackberries and raspberries. Mix like mad until all the berries are thoroughly coated with the fish/crisco mixture. And yes you will have to stop and thaw your hands out occassionally as they will half freeze once you start pouring the frozen berries in.

Clean off your hands. Give a lil bit to the past elders and family members who have passed on then grab a BIG BOWLFUL and enjoy!!!

Hope y’all will try these recipes. Ok I don’t really expect you to try the AKUTAQ but I can guarantee you the soups fabulous.

To Avotresante–
Thanks for the greeting, Neighbor…I’m in Johns Creek. I know it seems almost sacrilegious talking food in this particular column today, but rather than an Italian beef only, tho, can I make it a combo, with beef AND sausage, extra peppers, please…just like I used to get at”Garden on a Bun” at Harlem and Belmont? (They had great hot dogs, too, hence the name.. but their beef or combo sandwiches were SO much better I’d always make that my first choice. And there are still days, I’d kill for a TomTom tamale from a hotdog stand…or the roast duck and fluffy Bohemian dumplings with gravy from Old Prague Restaurant on Cermak Rd in Berwyn. I still can’t bring myself to do the headcheese, but just in case “The Urge” ever strikes , you might want to get yourself to Adam’s European Deli (P’tree Indl between Abbot’s Bridge (120) and Rogers Bridge in Duluth…and you can likely smell your childhood all over again:-)

Charles said:
“I have had some contact with a few grassroots organizations over the years…and though I haven’t been that involved, one of the things I have seen them do as well is post the names, emails, phone humbers of government officials that need to be contacted. In dealing with the Emmonak situation could someone there in Alaska do that for us?”
—————————-
Trying to get that going.
AKM at mudflats made a forum thread for us to kick stuff around in. A couple of folks are getting info but right now session is due to start Tuesday ( Inaugural day not as much fun here- with projected return of the ghastly gov…) and most of those folks are just getting here, unpacking, and trying to get their feet on the ground. They are not reachable yet…

Bruce Springsteen sang this today, and I think it fits this community:
The Rising
Can’t see nothin’ in front of me
Can’t see nothin’ coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I’ve gone
How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed
On my back’s a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line

Come on up for the rising
Com on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin’ the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin’ down here

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

I see you Mary in the garden
In the garden of a thousand sighs
There’s holy pictures of our children
Dancin’ in a sky filled with light
May I feel your arms around me
May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin’ on the end of the line

Sky of blackness and sorrow ( a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness ( a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear ( a dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow ( a dream of life)
Your burnin’ wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life ( a dream of life)

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

troutay- Thank you for the miracle. It made me cry. Not much makes me cry. My sisters have said this was all over the news -over and over- but all I can see are news photos.
This take on what went right is what made me cry .
Well trained everyday people doing their job well- all across the board, every one of them.
Everyday people…
all most of us are ever gonna be.
Yes- they did!
Yes- we can!!!!

Hey Ann- Come on over to Glass Houses and celebrate a smidge. We’ve all been working so hard. Especially you.

OK I am getting requests for donations via paypal. My youth program does not have the ability to accept credit card payments. I do have my own personal paypal account but I am not comfortable using it for this.

All I can suggest is priority mail checks or money orders made out to the City of Nunam Iqua. For those of you who have requested the list of actual families names/addresses/needs I would strongly discourage sending them checks made out to them. There is absolutely NO WHERE here or upriver that will cash 3rd party checks.

And I do not know how many of them have bank accounts that they could send them into. I couldn’t even cash my baby’s x-mas check from her grammie and auntie in WA, even tho I am a City Employee. So 3rd party checks won’t work. They would have to be made out to the City.

Thats the address for boxes and or checks if you send a check please make it payable to: City of Nunam Iqua.

Butt paste LOL I personally don’t care for it, first off it looks like Anaq ( Yupik for BM, POOP, S**T) whatever y’all wanna call it. And secondly it doesn’t cover well, seems to rub off too easily. My personal favorite is Bag Balm, or Teat Balm the one that comes in the green tin, it’s awesome put it on diaper rash and a couple of hours later the rash is gone!!!

Crisco sticks are fine but make sure they the original plain kind, can’t use butter flavored to make Akutaq LOL

Oh and just recd text from friend – Costco has “emergency food kits” – her thought is that those could go out first while we assemble the rest of the list provided by Ann – more a stopgap measure but Costco ships!

Hi folks – consider sending the Crisco shortening bars rather than the cans – less weight. Raji, there’s BJ’s & Sam’s – I didn’t include Sam’s earlier because Wally World, as a company, doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to community projects and assistance

I forgot, I wanted to say hello to Joe in Atlanta, from the 50s in Chicago. Same here! My folks were in Irving Park; Czech/German/Bavarian, and I don’t have the same fond food memories you do. The table was laid with blood sausage, pig knuckles, too many gross things to remember …. I was a very thin child. Outside NE of Atlanta for the last 30 years. Now, old, fat, and eating fresh unpoisoned food from the garden all year round. But I’d give my BFFs right arm for an Italian Beef sandwich. I still smell it in my dreams.

Hi everyone, just another suggestion. Since Ann mentioned they got packages fairly quickly from places like Amazon, what about ordering supplies from websites that offer free shipping? I’m going to look into that tomorrow. That might help those who would like to donate but can’t get out to shop. Greytdog mentioned Cosco but there are others out there as well.

Struggling in NI…I hope you (and those in Eme) are flooded w/ boxes! You’ll be receiving some from me as soon as the USPS can get them there! And yes, I’ll send shortening and pack them w/ candy & bubble gum! :o)

Thank you for letting us know what practical things you all need. Reading your list is very humbling b/c it is so basic. We’re doing our best to get you everything you need ASAP and to sustain the help through June.

Helen & Margaret, look what the two of you have initiated! What heroes you are! Octogenarians STILL changing your world…and inspiring all of us to stand up and act right along with you!

You’re absolutely right. We should have MANY more vo/tech schools. Not everyone is going to be academically successful or work successfully in a white-collar job. If we trained more young people to support themselves financially by learning a vocation or trade, we would change the future of our country and our children! I daresay we would cut crime rates, reduce welfare expenditures, reduce drug trafficking, etc., etc., etc., while increasing the self-esteem and self-sufficiency of hundreds of thousands of teens who — right now — are becoming high-school dropouts.

avotresante – omigod, how dense can I be???? I have THREE pilots on my client roster! I’ll email them tonight. I don’t know where they are right now – one flies for US Air, another works with a charter company ferrying highfaluting tooters, and the other is with – holy crap! – DHL international. Okay gotta go send those emails.

The address I just posted is fine. My youth center is capable of receiving, sorting and distributing whatever comes in. We have experience we have done Coats for Kids twice and Toys for Tots 3 times now, and books from our local health corporation.

I have a list of each family here and what they specifically need and we have enough vehicles and workers so we can deliver to those who can’t make it down to the NIPY Center or don’t have transportation or sleds.

And (knock on wood) if it gets to be too much stuff for the Youth Center then we will put any overflow into the community hall. I have about a dozen workers who can help and I am sure I will not have any problem finding volunteers.

Hey all. I know I’ve been doing some ranting of my own lately and this might sound like more of it, but please keep an open mind.
I worked for a major disaster relief org, and from my experience, it’s another huge scam. We can’t count on the government for timely help either. The “celebrities” might be something to check out, but who knows one? I have an idea.
Would anyone be willing to hire a private plane to carry supplies? I have a friend who owns a couple of large planes for the business she’s in, and I’ve asked for help for Emmonak. Waiting for a response, and I’m sure there are considerations I’m not aware of as well as the cost. (contracts, insurance, etc. ) She may or may not be able to do it. But private companies might be an idea worth investigating. Is there anyone else out there who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone with some planes? Would anyone be willing/able to contribute to the transportation cost? I’ll let everyone know as soon as I hear one way or another from her.

Sorry forgot to respond to you. MMMM AKUTAQ yeah it doesn’t sound good, but once you try and don’t think about what it is, it is absolutely WONDERFUL!! My favorite is Chee fish and Blackberry or blueberry or raspberry Akutaq. Not a real big salmon berry fan altho I did use some that we picked to make jam and that was really good.

We didn’t get to go out berry picking this year. But thankfully the year before we picked over 30 gallons of berries and we still have about 3 gallons left.

OOOH and Potlatch yeah it’s fun. I actually had my first dance at last years potlatch. You have to have your first official potlatch before you can dance. We had to give out lots of gifts to ask permission for me to dance but I am very happy to be an official GRADUATED YUPIK DANCER now 😀 They are starting to have practice for this years potlatch which will be held in March. I love to eskimo dance.

If you looked at that link I put up a few posts back there are some pictures under the Town Hall Meeting Album of me eskimo dancing.

Maybe I can talk the elders into having a special mini potlatch once things start arriving and we can hand out to the community and celebrate with eskimo dancing. Hmm have to think about that, sounds like fun but I definitely do not want to make people wait to get stuff.

Well I am for a bit, need to cut up some moose and marinate it in Teriyaki sauce for dinner.

Sorry had to be offline this afternoon was waiting on a phone call from the airlines for some freight for my youth center. Yes I have dial up so when I am online I can’t receive phone calls.

Grandma Katie and others:

The fastest/cheapest way to get things here from what I am hearing on this website is priority mail a flat rate box. Wait can you priority mail the flat rate boxes??? I don’t know much about the flat rate boxes but I do know priority mail arrives here fairly quickly.

If you would like a list of specific families to adopt or send boxes to please email me at nunamiquayouth@yahoo.com I will give you the list which includes name, address, family size, and specific needs.

If anyone wants to send a check please make it payable to the CITY OF NUNAM IQUA and send it to the above address. We will be taking any money sent and dividing it among the needy for heating fuel and electricity bills.

To submit a story idea to one of the ABC News shows listed below, write a single page letter including your name, phone number, and address. Include photocopies of backup information. On the outside of the envelope, write “Story Idea.” If a producer is interested in your story, he/she will contact you. Here are the show addresses:

Jane in Miami & Mary Ann – thank you both for those wonderful links!!! I am now dancing around the house with the dogs singing Oh Sarah Palin if you become V P. . . .
Here’s what we’ve found out – Costco Corporate HQ is located in SEATTLE!!!!! And yes, the stores are definitely linked to one another. We’ll be contacting Costco corporate first thing Monday to see if they would be willing and able to pitch in – especially if folks can order online. The GM at our local store noted that if someone doesn’t have a Costco card they can always use someone else’s membership number online to order items. So if you’re not a member and don’t want to be, and you know someone who is, ask them to let you log on with their membership #.
I’m also going to head over to a client’s house later this evening – I do PT for their tripod dog – and he owns an organic produce company that supplies restaurants along the entire eastern seaboard, and big box grocery stores, including Whole Foods – and may be able to come up with transport ideas, other contacts in the food industry, etc… AND he’s a HUGE Obama supporter – so hoping to twang some major support there. He may also know who in the media to tap. More later

GREAT soup. I just loved It. I can’t believe my husband even ate it and likedi it. This from the guy who thinks potato chips are a vegetable!!!!!, My daughter , who is on weight watchers, said there are hardly any points in it and she gobbled it up too and took the receipe home with her.

I have had some contact with a few grassroots organizations over the years…and though I haven’t been that involved, one of the things I have seen them do as well is post the names, emails, phone humbers of government officials that need to be contacted. In dealing with the Emmonak situation could someone there in Alaska do that for us? It is amazing what happens when government officials from a state start getting emails and phone calls from around the country DEMANDING answers and action.

I know it is not as practical as sending supplies…but if these people know that as a country we are not going to stand for this type of sh*t anymore, that we demand our own are taken care of and we don’t mean securing another CEO’s salary…or another “bridge to nowhere: to keep it regional. Time to make a ruckus people!

I would be glad to send it t o one of you any one sending boxes to help with the cost.

My new bed buddy the stuffed moose my daughter named Mona Moose Moss makes me laugh every time I look at it. Still wouldn’t be surprised to see SArah Moose
Hunter in her high heels come stalking though the door ready to
shoot Mona.

Help Please!!
I have a small it of money I received for Christmas. It would be cash, enough to maybe get a couple or so flat rate boxes or baby cereal or something. The thought of spending on myself for something not necessary is appaling.

Especially after reading all the comments of the things all of you are doing makes me p roud to be part of this group.and ashamed of our gov in times of crisiis. Too manytrillions have been wast ed over there. Children ging h ungry or adults either shouldn’t happpen.

By the way, Yukon King Salmon because they have an amazing fat content. The Yukon River is 1500 miles long and the Salmon need lots of fat to swim that far. You cannot get better Salmon than the Yukon River Salmon, especially Kngs.

Flat rate boxes are cardboard boxes that USPS makes available free of charge. There are two sizes and the postage rates are $10.35 and $13.95. You put as much in as you can and still close the box and the rate is the same. A box full of baby cereal would cost the same to ship as a box of formula.

What is the best address to publish? A distribution center capable of receiving a flood of small parcels and get the food/supplies directly into the hands of people who need it most across the region.

Akutaq: I had so many people tell me to try it and it is great. I tried some in Emo. I got quite a bit actually. I ate it but boy I was thinking it was supposed to be ice cream. It is an acquired taste.

The Potlatches in the village are the best though.

The yu/pik know how to celebrate. I like the way they celebrate on the anniversary of peoples deaths. I also like the way they honor their elders.

Holy COW!!! you really know how to fill a box!! What wonderful suggestions, I am amazed!! I sit here imagining open boxes stuff with essentials surrounded by candy and gum LOL I’ll remember to be very careful when opening boxes now 😉

I don’t know if I know what a flat rate box is but I hope that someone will fill one with Crisco Shortening or the generic version. Here we use it to make a very high protein dish called Akutaq (aaah gooo duck) aka eskimo icecream made with shortening mixed with fish and berries. It is not only a staple here but also a favorite. I know I haven’t made much of it due to the cost of shortening here running over $12 a can.

Also I thought to mention since many of us are running low on diapers DESTIN or other diaper rash ointment would be greatly appreciated.

Love the idea of throwing in condiments gathered from restaurants and gas stations never would have thought of that. (and here I used to laugh at my Grammie in WA State when she collected them where ever she went)

Reading your post made me understand that I am working with some veteran “philanthropists” here LOL I used to make care packages for our sailors when I was ombudsman for a squadron in CA and I had forgotten all the lil tricks to make the most of a box. I am so happy you posted your ideas!!

If any of you who who know more about the situation than me have a kid or grandkid on Facebook, have them start a Facebook group. Yesterday I joined the group ‘Yukon Kuskokwim Delta for Obama’ and left a post asking someone who lives there to start a group and invite all their friends to join but no response.

I also started a discussion on Jimmy Buffet’s page asking fans to encourage him to fly a relief mission but that’s not really the kind of things they talk about there.

Or, if you post a link to an explanation targeted toward people who live in a sound bite world, I’ll start a group. Post an address that can best distribute the food as well.

Alaskan — thank you for asking what’s going on in our neighborhoods. I live in a suburb of a city w/ 250,000 people. The crime rate in the city is very high, and the mayor, police dept, community activists, etc. are always talking about ways to lower the crime rate (imposing curfews, increasing attendance @ youth centers, encouraging people to snitch on those who have committed violent crimes, giving $$$ to those who anonymously turn in guns)…BUT no one has talked about increasing the graduation rate!

Our graduation rate is 30%…yes, you read that right…we have a 70% dropout rate!!! (This is the AVERAGE dropout rate for cities of a quarter-million or more people — and I hope everyone is appalled to learn that!)

I want my city to focus on increasing the graduation rate — I’m convinced that the crime rates would decrease proportionately as graduation rates increased.

I have a few ideas to suggest to our mayor — build more vo/tech schools (we only have one), mentoring programs, improving the reading curriculum in elementary schools (so that more high-schoolers have better reading skills) — but I would love more ideas and suggestions! Does anyone have experience tackling a drop-rate of this magnitude?

Oh…contact your doctor’s offices as well…they may be willing to donate non-prescription samples they have received from pharmaceutical companies. (I received hundreds of sample-packets from local doctors of vitamins, eye-drops, cough drops, etc. to send to New Orleans after Katrina)

Those individual foil packets of tuna, salmon, & chicken breasts are great – high protein, heat-n-eat, and you can fit dozens of them in a box…..also, they’re easy to find at your dollar stores or discount stores like Big Lots

Canned hams are great – and easy to find at the dollar stores…also canned tuna and sandwich spreads (like the Underwood chicken and roast beef)

You can find canned brown bread in the baking section of your grocery store

Whenever I’m in a fast-food restaurant or a gas station, I pick up a few seasoning packets to include in boxes – salt, pepper, ketchup, soy sauce, taco sauces, etc. Pack them in snack-size ziploc baggies & use them to fill in empty spaces in the boxes

Diaper Wipes are terrific to send (and easy to find at the dollar stores) – they can be used in lieu of toilet paper, as well as for quick bathing when it’s hard to heat water (and fuel seems scarce there right now)….buy the individual foil-wrapped refill packets instead of the big bulky plastic boxes. If you take them out of their cardbaord packages, you can fit a dozen or so packages in the square flat-rate boxes

You can fit more cans in the shirt-box size flat rate boxes than in the square size

You can fill up the empty spaces in the box with individually wrapped hard candies (think jolly ranchers) or bubble gum (like dubble bubble)

Canned goods and heavy boxes (pancake mix or rice) should always go flat-rate, but some things are MUCH cheaper to send in non-flat-rate boxes (although they should be priority mail) – cocoa, tea, oatmeal, beef jerky, instant potatoes, dried fruit — all cheaper in a non-flat-rate box

…..from someone who has packed & mailed A LOT of emergency care-packages; I hope this is helpful!

If any of you would like to see some pictures of who you are helping here’s a link to my youth centers picture website. There aren’t any current pictures b/c we lost our free wireless that we had here and I can’t upload them on dial up. But there are lots of pictures from our first 3 years.

I will try to upload some more if I can get on the schools library computers that are wireless and much faster.

If any of you would like to see some pictures of who you are helping here’s a link to my youth centers picture website. There aren’t any current pictures b/c we lost our free wireless that we had here and I can’t upload them on dial up. But there are lots of pictures from our first 3 years.

I will try to upload some more if I can get on the schools library computers that are wireless and much faster.

Dee – NJ
For crying out loud – I’d buy a box of Depends and go if I could! Understand though…

Am already so late for work ..
re: CNN in particular- other news place in general-
If those folks could spend the money to go to Liitle Diomede to check veracity of gov’s claim about being able to see Russia from here. why can’t they spend the money to go to Yukon-Delta to see what she CHOOSES not to see?

OK someone please help!!! When I signed up for this blog I must have selected something that now emails me every time someone posts a new message. My email box is jammed, how do I turn that off???? I am working on dial up here and I have to wait forever for my inbox to load and then here is just a bunch of margaret and helen new comment on soups on emails.

Hi Everyone, this has been such a wonderful weekend – the train tiip, the smiles & speeches – I can’t stay away from the TV ! I had a great surprise last week – an invitation to attend the innauguration. Of course, an old lady like me has no business getting in the middle of crowds like that – besides – I heard there’s a shortage of potty booths !! Watching everything on the telly will excite me enough.
I hope the Secret Service has SP on their watch list – she DOES know how to use a rifle !! After her hateful accusations about our POTUS elect, she should never be allowed or invited anywhere near him. The old saying: “When you point a finger at someone, there are 3 fingers pointing back at you” is sooo true in her case. She is a pitiful human being, who whines about how mean she was treated. If she ever even attempts to enter national politics, I have news for her: she ain’t seen nothing yet ! All that being said, I wish Margaret & Helen & their families, and all of you a God Bless and a Very Happy 2009. SOUP’S ON !!

Again woke up thinking of Alaska. I am going to give up on food lifeline for now and concentrate on filling boxes to go to Alaska priority mail.

I am a person who hates waiting and that will be real hands on for me.

I am amazed at the wonderful people here and on mudflats. I keep thinking we need a nation wide network for food banks and other food related non profits so that we can mobilize quickly in these emergency situations.

Maybe another food tree or internet tree. So many thoughts filling my head today.

Will be in and out as the Mr. thinks I need to spend time with him today. Tomorrow is mine and will be getting boxes ready.

For those of you who are worried about your packages taking too long to get here please keep in mind that we have VERY long winters here. We will not start to thaw and break up until May. And actually during break up (when the Yukon River ice breaks up and heads out to sea) is the hardest time because our ability to travel is completely dependent upon airplanes which are often grounded due to flooding caused by the break up.

So with that said even if things take a while to get here they will still be very much needed!!

WOW!! I think it was on mudflats that someone posts a list of emails to tons of news people maybe you could send it to them too???

I am up early today, couldn’t sleep. So I am searching blogs and groups on yahoo to spread the word. Additionally, I emailed my friends in the lower 48 and they are posting the message on the boards etc that they belong to.

I even sent an email to NAC, Native America Calling a nationwide NATIVE radio talk show that I was featured on last year.

My thoughts are the more we get the word out the more help will come. I am afraid the I am pretty clueless about the logistical side of this especially when y’all start talking about airlifts. I wish I knew more and could provide more information, but like I said I have only lived here about 4 1/2 years and only know the airlines that fly here.

Well that’s all for now, I need to put more wood in the woodstove temps dropping fast this morning it’s already -6 below zero. I’ll keep checking back and keep trying to find more places to post my message.

“…am contacting everyone I know but I still can’t understand why the Alaskan situation is not at least making a footnote at the end of the news. The need is much greater than any of us knew”

——————
Jean-
As happens all over America, especially the last 8 yrs, the folks out there have been demonized by their own neighbors as lazy and shiftless and so on. Social Darwinism is alive and well- even though it should have died a natural death ages ago. One of the fatalities in the religious right movement has been understanding- standing under what you know and holding it up for all to see. There is a mind mechanism there to block out neighbors in pain. Somehow it’s all their own fault, ya know, the weather, the fish runs. the cost of fuel…”the perfect storm” as it is starting to be called here.

The best way to get Sarah Palin to help is to cast her in a bad light… we all know how much she hates that!

I have emailed CBS News with Katie Couric under user feedback and have asked that this story be reported. To report why the “honorable” governor will not declare a state of emergency to the good people of the Yukon Delta, Alaska.

I have copied Ann Strongheart’s letter, as well as the links to this website and themudflats.net and also Sarah’s Pale reply to why she does not want to help. That heartless bitch!

If we all ask the major networks to please report this story maybe the news will get out there and these folks will get some food and fuel to stay warm.

What do ya say? Anyone willing to ask these big networks to report it?

I just want to remind Gov Palin that the village people starving will continue to be a problem until June, when the ice breaks up. Even then, the villagers will need help getting fuel for the boats until they start selling salmon. (The fish broker quit so selling fish will not be easy either.)

The temperature was below freezing through April in 08. A one or two time drop of supplies will not be enough.

AnnΔ-
Go here. I’m in a rush this AM. Have to go to work soon…
Addresses and phone numbers for village corps are listed. If you check out Calista Regional Corp site- and blow up land and resource map so you can read it , you will see the land and villages and distance from Bethel- closest “big” neighbor.
Ms Strongheart has said her village corp collapsed in autumn – they ran her village’s store… some contacts may be outta-order out there…
The 1st warning came in July from Walt Moneghan.
More warnings in October from locals out there when early freeze set in after crappy fish year. DAYS and DAYS of warnings at AFN meeting in fall…
THIS DID NOT have to happen.

I was just on the SPAN ALASKA WEBSITE and I think I will order from them and have food sent. You buy by the case so you get a lot of one item. Postage is paid with the price. That is how I ordered food when I was in Emmonak.
You can also put the food on a credit card.

I have forwarded the contact information to organizations where I am known…I am wondering if we can get mailing information about other villages similar to the info. supplied by Ann Strongheart,because we can set up partnering with individuals thru churches & in schools …grass roots aid.

Just talked with my friend who is heading over to Costco – he’s going to also contact the corporate HQ folks on Monday – and see if they would be willing to donate shipping fees if folks will help pay for the food to be sent. He’s now thinking in pallets – and wants to see if there would be a price break by buying the items that way. And he asked me this – besides elders and children, do these folks have pets? Should we be sending in animal food so they don’t have to take away food from their table to feed the pets? Anyone know? Let me know so we can start contacting some of the pet food companies like Natura and Champion. Personally speaking, I would like to see a supply lifeline airlift to rival the Berlin airlift.

I’ll definately be having soup on the 20th, for the times they’ll be a changin!

Here’s a time honored “stew” that my grandmother used to make. It is named after the county in Texas from which she was from. They served it at her school every Friday in Sulphur Springs, Texas. Use a huge stock pot for this one. Hope you all enjoy!

Combine all ingredients and bring to boil. Continue cooking on low heat for 1- 1/2 to hours.
Do not add cream style corn until last fifteen minutes or so to thicken stew and stir often to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Let cool for 15 -20 minutes before serving.

Alaskan- many aplogies. Would you some to forum too , please? Organized persons desired.
I’m too old for this crap. I’ve been up since 3 AM so I could talk to my lil grand on the east coast and I’m still stumbling round here at 11PM.

EMMONAK PICTURES: If you want to see pictures of Emmonak, go to my blog and check out from Jan 08 to May 08. That is Emmonak, AK. (I was going to mention it before but the archiving did not work but I got it fixed, so check out the village.)

Here we go- yes we can!
Forum at mudflats has a spot to talk now too.
Query forum for food and energy crisis-
Have someone closer to Anchorage who has some contacts with Calista . Hoping for another airlift… hope, hope.
Greytdog and Proud- we need you there too please- organized folks desired.
Proud- get better!!!!
Ann- hang in there !

Margaret and Helen- thank you for the elbow room in your parlour – to wave our arms around and all. We will wipe the all the chalked plans off the walls- I promise!

Charles- Holler up as loud as you can, please. And have another piece of pie!
Everyone-
What is going on in YOUR neighborhood?

Sally, why didn’t I think of the flat rate boxes for heaven’s sake? Of course. That is what is so beautiful about this blog, SO many caring people with SO many good ideas and SO prompt with action.

Yes, it was an absolutely gorgeous day here on Kauai. But we can’t forget what a wretched winter it is and will be for several months for many, many people, not only in Alaska but all around the country.

gramma rock, looks like you are in for a rough patch. Just remember that we are here with a bunch of broad shoulders. The only words I can think of is to hang in there and muddle through. Please let us know how things are going for you and your husband.

The clarity of the information we are getting here, especially from Ann Strongheart, is amazing! The list of everyday items all of us have sitting in our pantrys. We thought we had it tough when gas was $4.00+. The prices of gas and deisel up there are astronomical!!!

I am contacting everyone I know but I still can’t understand why the Alaskan situation is not at least making a footnote at the end of the news. The need is much greater than any of us knew. Of course, the inauguration and celebration is uppermost in most people’s minds, but……

I am so thankful that Ann, JuneauJoe, Alaska Pi, and Alaskan are letting all us know what is really going on up in the YK Delta. I do think that this rural vs. urban, but I also think it’s a case of outta sight, outta mind. And that it’s not just in Alaska – although that appears to be the most dire situation given the extreme temperatures and the remoteness of the area – but all over this country. I know my town has seen an uptick in homelessness – families – as well as the food banks and other aid places are being especially hard hit. At potluck tonight, we were brainstorming about Monday being National Service Day – and trying to figure out a way to help the folks up in Alaska. Ms. Strongheart’s supply list was very very helpful. We were trying to balance the desire/need to help the folks up North while still helping the folks in our own community. And from the mouth of tween came this amazing answer: why not contact Publix (a major grocery chain here)? Or Costco? They’ve got the stuff that’s needed, and you tell ’em it’s good PR without being political.” Ever see 8 adults staring in stunned silence at one another and then congratulating a tween for helping figure out a new avenue of attack? WOW. So one of the guys is heading to Costco in the morning to talk to the local GM about this – I’ll keep you informed.

It’s kinda funny some packages take forever but others are really fast. When I placed orders on Amazon.com for Christmas presents they were here really fast some only taking 2 days to arrive from the lower 48. Others took a couple of weeks.

Priority mail seems to make it in under a week. I know my friends and family in WA sent packages last year and they only took a couple of days to get here. So I guess it just depends. Mostly on the weather. But it looks like we will have good weather for a few days. The skys are clear and the temps dropping fast. Yesterday we had 36 degrees now we are at -2 below zero. But like I said the skies look clear and we are expecting flights in. We had several flights today.

So like some of the other bloggers have suggested GO PRIORITY MAIL!!! it does get here the fastest. Don’t waste the money to send it EXPRESS MAIL it doesn’t get here any faster.

I appreciated your comments on subsistence. Trying to live only/mainly on what you can catch or gather is hard. And I know we aren’t the only family that is tired of Moose meat. Altho I am getting pretty good at disguising it….mmmm had teriyaki moose stir fry couple nights ago, my hubby and sister in law thought it was beef LOL

But there is only so much you can do with a moose or a fish or a bird. LOL

Well I am off for the night. Talk to you all later. Thank you again for all of your help both sending stuff and emotionally here in the blog!!

News on the Alaska Public Radio Network
Friday, January 16, 2009http://aprn.org/

According to Alaska Public Radio Network, some help reached the village of Emmonak on Friday.

Go to the APRN web site, then click on links to these two stories, to hear the latest news for yourself. Mention is made of Frontier Airline’s plan to ship the food to Emmonak for free. I didn’t get where Frontier’s flight would originate, nor if that is the means by which the village received the first shipment on Friday.

The third story is an interview with the state senator who represents Emmonak.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
North Slope villages rally to help Emmonak
Janelle Everett, KBRW – Barrow http://aprn.org/
“Villages on the north slope are stepping up to help out residents of Emmonak, the Southwest Alaska village that put out an urgent call for assistance earlier this week….” (Mentioned were people from the communities of Wainwright and Barrow.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Donations to Emmonak flood in from around the country
Lori Townsend, APRN – Anchorage http://aprn.org/
“Emmonak residents have received the first of those shipments. 300 pounds of food arrived today. Nicolas Tucker Senior, the Emmonak resident who wrote the January 12th letter asking for help for the community says things are moving along quickly. Tucker says the village corporation, tribal council and city leadership have formed a committee to supervise and distribute the donations coming in and a village aid bank account has been established to handle cash donations. Tucker says goods are being shipped from churches in the lower 48….” (Tucker named three or four other area villages also in need and hopes that enough help will come in to Emmonak that it can share goods with the other nearby villages.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
State Senator Olson comments on situation in Emmonak
Dave Donaldson, APRN – Juneau http://aprn.org/
“Nome Democrat Donny Olson represents Emmonak in the state Senate. He says he’s familiar with the problems the people face throughout the region — and he regrets that the legislature cannot move quickly enough to give immediate relief to the community. But he says there’s no doubt people in that community as well as others are in trouble…”

I read a few crazy posts myself and I was offended. Having spent the time in a village, I saw first hand what village life is and is not. Many people have no clue of subsistence living in a village. A person cannot understand until they have lived in 20 and 30 below and tried to make a living in those conditions.
The fishing, hunting and fending off the cold is an art which people cannot appreciate if they have not lived it.

Ann, the people in the village have every right to ask for help. We gave 350 BILLION DOLLARS to banks because they gave out bad loans after all. When asked, what they did with the money, the banks said, none of your business. I think some of that money could be used to help people. My own personal view is that we could stop a war in Iraq and help a few folks with that money.

I am a vet too, just so you know.
Keep blogging Ann! You are doing an important thing for your community and the villages of the Lower Yukon.

Question: How long does it take you to get packages? It was about a month when I was in Emo?

Think of what a difference we could all make if each of us just sent one large flat rate box filled with boxed items and then stuffed with other packages like dried fruit and things. Even 20 or 30 boxes would make huge difference for so many families and for many of us, it wouldn’t really affect our bottom line so much.

I think that the USPS idea for baby cereal and formula is a good one, but like Joe said sometimes it can take a couple of weeks or a month for it to get there. Better than nothing, but frustrating to not be able to do something faster. Also, the boxes are small enough that they will fill very fast if putting in canned goods and other items.

I think Tuesday, I will get a box of formula and baby cereal off.

I know that it is more than just Emmonak, but that has become the name for the situation because that is what we have heard. It would be wonderful if there could be a central site up there where they food boxes could then be distributed to the villages allover the region. For instance, if donations are made to Emmonak, could they be earmarked for all those in need?

Thanks for you post. I am glad to hear something else positive (i was just reading some crummy posts on other blogs)

Also thank you for acknowledging the fact that there are extraordinary circumstances behind our needs. We had no way of controlling the fact that our freeze up was VERY early.

I grew up in WA State and moved to Nunam Iqua about 4 1/2 years ago. (this is where my late mother was born and raised)

So it’s not like I have a sheltered village life. I know what it’s like outside of Bush Alaska. Not only did I grow up in WA but I also was in the US Navy for 8 years and was stationed in FL, TN, HI and CA.

I am getting really excited about the prospect of help coming to my village and knowing that I did something, be it small, to get that help here.

Altho my dear husband is going a lil insane since I have pretty much been on the phone or the computer all day working on this.

Like I said I was reading some ugly posts on other blogs and YOURS REALLY Cheered me up!!

Thanks again. I need to get off the computer for awhile. My 18 month old probably is feeling a lil neglected today since Mommy has been working on this most of the day so I am gonna go play with her and wash some bottles and do some other things that I have neglected today. But I will be back online later tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks again to EVERYONE here!! I haven’t lost hope and I am excited knowing help is on it’s way.

Thank you for your email! Please keep posting, if you feel comfortable in doing so. A lot of people are trying to help but information needs to continue.

I lived in Emo for 6 months and I admire those of you in the villages. You really are great people who got caught up circumstances beyond your control.

I hope Gov. Palin will finally wake up to the need for help. Lip service is not good enough. The people in the villages deserve better than present financial crisis beyond their control. I challenge any person to live in their warmer climate home and pay $7.00 plus dollars a gallon for fuel oil. Try it at 20 to 30 below zero with a 20 MPH wind.

In Juneau, our electricity rates tripled because we are now using diesel generators to produce electricty. Juneau is paying $2.50 a gallon for diesel. We pay about $2.60 for a gallon of gas, compared to $7.50 in the village. (They got their fuel baarged in this past summer when Fuel was $4.50 a gallon in Juneau and that was crazy. The village did not get any of the lower priced fuel which is occurring now.)

Others are right: The issue is urban vs rural and most urban folks have no clue what it is like in rural Alaska. Some of the finest people, craftsmen, fishermen and hunters in the world are in these villages. They simply need assistance during some extraordinary conditions.

I went to our food bank this morning and talked to a couple of people. We believe our contacts at Food Lifeline are not there this weekend and may possibly be out Monday also for the holiday. We are going to call on Monday and see.

If we can’t get a response we are going to put together some items from our food bank to ship ourselves. We are a small group but will spare what we can from our shelves.

Bless Sally for reminding us about priority boxes again another Doh! I shipped with those all the time when my SIL was in Iraq. I always tend to forget the KISS rule Keep It Simple Stupid! LOL

Alaskan Pi thank you for the link! You guys are amazing! I am going to gather all of the info here and put together a notebook for our food bank for reference in any other emergency situations.

I came home not feeling to well and seem to be sniffling and snuffling. So I am going to lay down and see if I can chase away what ever is trying to take hold. Will check back with everyone in the morning.

Struggling: thank you for more information and the list of needed goods! We do realize that other villages are in the same situation. I am hoping that the organizations in Alaska setting up drives and deliveries are taking that into consideration.

Joe in Atlanta – you evil evil man. I’m gonna have to make that soup. Ohhhhh yummy. Thanks for posting. . . I can already smell it – my grandmother used to make a creamed pea/potato soup and your recipe sounds like hers – except she used bacon grease not butter.

Ahh, Margaret..if only YOU’D been my grandmother:-) But that said, I loved both of the grandmas I had, and remember the tastes and smells from their kitchens fondly.
We’re talking the 1950’s, on the Polish southwest side of Chicago.. so real food, not Stouffers, not take-out , but made from scratch just like they learned in the old country. The older I get, the more I remember and attempt to recreate the absolute taste wonders these two simple, sometimes fiesty,yet always wonderful ladies managed to lovingly create. I’ll take the liberty of sharing one if I may.

GRANDMA BERNICE”S QUICK CREAM OF PEA AND POTATO SOUP

NOTE: For those old enough to remember, and Catholic, this was always a Friday meatless dish, and substantial enough to BE dinner, but I’ve since found out that chicken broth can add another layer of flavor if desired vs just water, but use either as you prefer.

–2 Tbsp Butter (no not margarine.. you want the rich butter taste. Look, soup is health food even with butter compared to the bag of Fritos you ate yesterday)

–¼ to ½ of a medium sized onion, finely chopped

–Two quarts water or low sodium chicken broth. If using water add a half tsp salt.

–3 to 4 cups of potatoes, cut into approx ½ inch dice– red or white, either works

–Peas, I like peas and prefer frozen and use a full one pound bag, but a ten oz box or a can of peas will do too.

–Dairy, a matter of diet and guilt. You’ll get an exquisitely rich soup by using a cup of whipping cream, but you can progressively move down the guilt scale with ½ and ½, whole milk. I suppose you could use 2% or skim.. but I’m not gonna be the one to try it.

Melt butter in a sturdy soup pot and add chopped onion. Gently sauté until translucent. Add broth or water and potatoes, simmer till potatoes are almost tender..about 20-30 mins. Add peas and simmer an addl. Five minutes.

Now another matter of personal preference: Puree the soup. If you have a stick blender it’s ideal…just plunge it in the pot and fire away. Alternately a small hand mixer works at low speed….or a potato masher. Or pour the soup in a blender. I like my soup with just a bit of chunk to it and don’t fully puree. Grandma used to make it totally smooth. You decide.

Finally add your dairy choice, or not. I’ve also made this with no dairy in it, but served with a glop of sour cream in each bowl, and some chopped chive or green onion as a garnish.

It’s an unfortunate time to be trying a recipe, including peanut butter. There is a salmonella outbreak, that hasn’t been well tracked at this point.
It seems that bulk peanut butter & paste used in
prepared foods is the culprit. Any Kellog or Austin peanut butter crackers are off limits, yikes, one of my regulars when traveling.
Here is an article…..http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2009/01/16/hscout623204.html

Just catching up on this…looked up “Emmonak” in Google news, just a few stories, all from Alaska.
Your Governor’s response is absurd, we had some flooding in Oregon and those counties were labelled as in crisis…and set up for aid.

I am going to write Sen. Ron Wyden when I get home from work, he is on the Senate Budget Committee…and I would suggest everyone write their members in Congress, if the national news doesn’t want this story, then WE WILL MAKE IT NEWS!

It is time to make the government to work for the people again and by flooding them with what the people need is a major way to get them moving. I am so sick of lobbying by large money…it is time for us to grassroots lobby!

OOH I just realized I forgot to put baby cereal and baby food on the list.

I was scanning thru the blogs here and thought I would give you all some more information on the YK Delta.

I noticed i think it was JuneauJoe commenting on airfare. I dunno when he was here but it now costs $650 to fly from Emmonak to Anchorage round trip. For us to get to Emmonak from Nunam Iqua is an additional $150 so that’s $800 from Nunam to Anchorage and back.

His assessment of the housing is fairly accurate. Here in Nunam Iqua there are many families, myself included, who live in what could be described as shacks. Our house is 20′ x 30′ and is contructed out of plywood. It was built back in the 60’s and is very drafty and leaky LOL we use my 18 month old’s leftover diapers that are too small to catch the leaks when it’s raining or warms up. But we don’t have a choice, this is the only housing available, we rent it. It’s a choice between here or living with family and we would much rather have our own place, even tho it needs serious help.

Here in Nunam Iqua, we have no running water or sewer. They are currently building our water/sewer project and we hope to have running water/sewer this year or next. We are a honey bucket community, meaning we have 5 gallon buckets in our bathrooms with toilet seats on them.

Additionally, we have no roads here, no cars. We travel by snowmachine and 4-wheeler during the winter and by boat in the summer. We had a store here but it collapsed due to the rising energy costs.

We are currently paying $7.20 for a gallon of gas and $7.35 for a gallon of stove oil. The majority of homes here use stove oil for heat. Some of us have wood stoves to help keep the costs down.

We do have regular postal service here, depending on the ability of planes to make it in. The only way for supplies to arrive here is by plane or during the summer by barge. The majority of us live a subsistence lifestyle. Our major meat sources come from Fishing and Hunting. We also pick berries and wild greens during the summer/fall. We have nets under the ice on the river but the fish seem to be very slow coming this winter.

Oh yeah, Nunam Iqua is a village of about 200 people, located on the southern mouth of the Yukon. We got a brand new school this past summer so now our kids don’t have to brave the elements to make it to their classrooms and the gym to eat.

We currently have a City Office, a Tribal Office, the School, the Clinic, Laundrymat, Powerplant, Youth Center and Post Office available in Nunam.

I know this is going to sound funny but I am very grateful that it got cold again today. We had 36 degrees last night and were worried that it might start to affect the ice on the river and make it unsafe to travel but now we are back down to 9 degrees so no more worrying about the river.

The pike should start running soon so we will be able to take a 60 mile day trip by snowmachine to go catch pike and dry them assuming we can afford gas.

Ummm I don’t know whatelse to tell y’all but I thought I would give you an idea of what it’s like here in Nunam Iqua. We did have a very early freeze up this year and the last barge didn’t make it in. We are having temperatures ranging from
-25 degrees below zero to 30 above. Normally, we are consistently below zero this time of year.

Hope that gives y’all some information and answers some questions you might have about the YK Delta.

I was asked to come here and blog. I have been blogging on themudflats.net about how it isn’t just EMMONAK that is struggling. I have copied 2 of my posts there and put them here.

It’s not just Emmonak that is struggling it’s the entire Yukon Delta. I live in Nunam Iqua, a village that is 25 miles south of Emmonak. Not only are we faced with the same issues as Emmonak but also our crisis is harder because we no longer have a store here. Our trading post colapsed several months ago, so we have no place here to get groceries.

So not only are we struggling between choosing heating fuel or food but also we have to spend even MORE MONEY to buy gas to travel upriver to Emmonak or Alakanuk to even get food. Which is very expensive when you have pay $7.20 a gallon for gas. It takes atleast 6 gallons of gas just to travel by snowmachine to Emmonak or Alakanuk to even get groceries. So that takes that much more money away from what we have to spend on heating fuel and food.

We try to reduce our heating fuel costs by using our wood stove but then are we really saving money? because we still have to spend money on gas to go and get wood for our wood stove.

Everyone, especially Govenor Palin, needs to realize that it’s not just Emmonak residents that are suffering! We need help in all of the YK Delta villages!

OK, I complied a list of everyone here in Nunam Iqua. I spoke to all but one household here and Have a list of what is needed. I got permission for my Youth Center to receive/distribute any donations that come in. So they can be mailed to:

OR if you would like to send boxes directly to needy families I have a list of families including their family size and needs and their PO Box #’s you can email me at nunamiquayouth@yahoo.com if you would like a copy.

Here is a list of things that are desperately needed, since we have no store here in Nunam Iqua we are really struggling to get food and groceries here.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. We greatly appreciate it. Our weather is getting wierd here, it got really hot here last night up to 36 degrees, if it keeps up we will be unable to travel upriver by snowmachine to get food, b/c the river will be unsafe to travel on.

I know there have been references to scams so please feel free to look us up online. Nunam Iqua Program for Youth. I was featured on NAC, Native America Calling last year addressing underage drinking in the Bush. And we are listed with the State of AK as one of their grantees. So you can verify the mailing address and email adress I provided.

I was too tired to put this up last night. I’m about to take on and identify some of the biggest problems there are. Well, why not!

As all of you know by now, I am a history buff. Before the holidays I was delivering a history lesson on Mohammed. I am leaving his biography for a while to take on some history of Christianity that I did not know until a few years ago.

The last we heard in my narrative, the Romans were still crucifying Christians and feeding them to lions. How the Christianity came to be the principal religion of Rome, Europe and thus the West occurred as a result of a famous battle between the armies of the Roman Emperor CONSTANTINE and the armies of his rival, MAXENTIUS. Constantine had many Christians in his army but Maxentius’ army were principally followers of MITHRAISM. Constantine converted to Christianity – sort of – just before the battle and won.

MITHRAISM (c.15th century BC or earlier) was a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY ancient religion in Parthia/Persia that predated Zoroastrianism. It was polytheistic with its principal god being ‘MITHRA, God of the Sun. (Vedic writings in India referred to him as the god, ‘Mitra’.) At times, the Greek and Roman Empires acknowledged Mithra, particularly in reference to SOLDIERS’ allegiance to KINGS and EMPERORS. He was the god of contracts, and oaths; thus, friendship.

As the God of the Sun, the contract was between the ‘Good Light of the Sun’ against the ‘Evil of Darkness’. Mithra evolved into the God of the Sun himself, so became the GOD of WAR in the continuing battle with EVIL. Loyalty to the king was a VITAL ELEMENT in the belief, so naturally imperial approval of the religion was essential to Mithraism. However, with the advent of the Roman Emperor CONSTANTINE’S victory, the religion faded away.

(As I have said before, I like white zin. I like one glass before dinner and one with. That’s it. That’s my speed. So now this morning, I’m not drinking heavily or smoking anything funny, I swear! And I’m not making this up. Honest!!! My imagination could NEVER be this fertile. You can google any of the details. Here is another theory of Creationism that would give the Intelligent Design Folks even more fits than Evolution.)

For at least fifteen or sixteen CENTURIES many, many people FERVENTLY believed in Mithraism. The mythology of Mithraism is delightfully colorful, especially with regard to creationism.

The Sun God sent a raven as a messenger to Mithra, telling him to slay a white bull in sacrifice.
(A white bull featured prominently in the religion of early Crete and also to some degree in Greek mythology. Their religions are interwoven. Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea was particularly associated with bulls. Neptune was the Roman god of the sea. Bulls again. The early people around the Mediterranean had a thing about bulls down to and including bull fights in Spain now.

There is a wild and crazy story about the MINOTAUR in the mythology of both Greece and Crete. The Minotaur was half human and half bull. It ate people so required annual human sacrifices)

Mithra was reluctant to kill the bull and somewhat sorrowful when he did it. The bull’s death symbolized the eternal struggle between Good and Evil. At the instant of death, the bull miraculously morphed into the moon. Mithra’s cloak became the sky with all the stars. The first grapes burst forth from the blood of the bull, the first ears of grain from its tail. Holy seed ran from the genitals into a mixing bowl representing the earth. As a result of this mingling, each living creature began, both plants and animals. The bull, as the moon, embarked on its monthly event, signaling the seasons, in essence the beginnings of Time. Of course, the activity of the ‘Good Light’ unleashed the creatures (gods?) of Darkness. The snake lapped up the blood of the bull with its tongue. From the genitals, a scorpion tried to suckle the holy seed.

Got that? OK.

The figure of the raven was represented in rock relief as AIR, the lion as FIRE, the serpent as EARTH and the mixing bowl as WATER. Everything was created from these FOUR ELEMENTS. After the bull’s sacrifice, the Sun God and Mithra feasted on bread, meat and wine in celebration. They then went off together in the god’s chariot into the sky, presumably to the ends of the earth.

This mythology has parallels in the Greek Philosopher Plato’s ‘REPUBLIC’ and ‘TIMAEUS’ with his discourses on physics, cosmology and even biology.

The Mithraic practitioners did not have temples. Their worship took place in caves, representing the Earth. The caves were decorated with relief and frescos depicting the events of the religion. Of course, men only were admitted into the initiation rites that were shrouded in secrecy. There was usually a labyrinth of subterranean passageways for initiates to navigate. (Shades of the labyrinth that the MINOTAUR lived in on Crete.) There were seven grades or steps through which the initiates were taken in ceremonies to reach full membership and acceptance. The worship culminated with a common meal.

In the rituals of Mithras the worshipers were offered consecrated bread and water. The SPANISH CONQUISTADORES were shocked to find similar rites among the Indians of Mexico and Peru.

Religious ideas have a very, very long life. There was a strange Moslem sect known as the ISMALITE SEVENERS that broke with established Islam. Converts to the sect were required to swear an oath of unconditional obedience to the head of the sect, the ‘DAI-D-DUAL’. Also they were sworn to absolute secrecy. The converts were then put through a lengthy initiation process consisting of NINE stages. Only bits and pieces of doctrine were revealed at each stage. They were told that all would be made known to them at the final stage. In other words, they were systematically brainwashed. (Does this sound like Mithraism?)

At the EIGHTH stage they were told that nothing could really be known of a Supreme Being, therefore, there was no need to pay homage to him. The followers were told that THEY were above any belief or law. Further, they were taught to expect a ‘Mahdi’, or Redeemer, who would establish a world of brotherly love, equality, justice and restore Islam to its glory. (Another Messiah?) The COMMUNIAL DOCTRINE for all property and women was back again in the guise of a quasi-mystical religion.

Over time the SEVENERS came to be a powerful force in Islamic countries. They founded the Fatimid Dynasty, after Mohammed’s daughter Fatima, and took over Egypt and North Africa. QARMAT, a peasant from Iraq, became the leader.

The QARMATI or CARMATHIANS as they came to be known, were quite an energetic sect. They must have been very persuasive as they gained thousands of converts and organized guilds of workers. Their interpretation of the Koran was to disdain the Islamic orthodox rituals.

The Carmathians went on to plunder most of Syria, and Basra, Iraq, and in 930AD sacked Mecca itself!!! They killed thousands of Moslems and along with other rich plunder, carted off the Black Stone!!! It was restored to the Kaaba twenty-one years later in 951.

The violence of the Carmathian threat to ordered society outraged most of the Islamic populace. Its own excesses helped to cause the Carmathians to die out and go underground. But a century later the sect re-emerged as the hashish devotees of the Ismaili of ALAMUT ASSASSINS.

They build an impregnable mountain fortress known as ‘The Eagle’s Nest’ or ‘The Castle of Death’. It was located south of the Caspian Sea and about 60 miles from present day Tehran, Iran.

Marco Polo encountered the Alamut stronghold in 1271. He recounted that the “Grand Master”, Hasan ibn al Sabbah, known as the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ had re-created a garden right out of Mohammed’s descriptions of Paradise in the Koran. It was complete with a number of nubile young women. The ‘FIDIAS’ (initiates) were given heavy doses of hashish and then brought into the garden. They believed they were actually in Paradise. After about five days of wine, women and fine food, they were again drugged with hashish and taken from the garden.

Of course, when the hashish wore off, the; ‘fidias’ wanted to go back to the garden. They were told they could return, forever, if they obeyed the Master without question and absolute fidelity or were killed in the process. (Does this have a familiar ring to it?)

The ‘fidias’ became known as the ‘hashshasheen’, drinkers of hashish. Thus the origin of the word, ‘assassin’. The organization survived the thirty-five year reign of Hasan and went on fight the Crusaders and otherwise wreak havoc until defeated by the Mongols in 1256. This zealous sect continued however, and became relatively peaceful as it spread throughout Persia into Syria, India and Africa.

Aloha!

Jean

P.S. We wre off to the BIG CITIES of Kapaa and Lihue. Catch you later.

Aloha from Hawaii. Jean, don’t know how it is on Kauai, but it was the most beautiful morning today – clear blue skies, slight tradewinds, a bit chilly. I shopped yesterday for the makings of Portuguese Bean Soup, so will make it for Tuesday and think of all you fellow bloggers and M&H and cheer on President Obama’s inaugural speech, which better be good, as Malia Obama said.

Sometimes when we are so comfortable in our lives, it is hard to imagine the horrors and struggles of others. Yet, people like WA Organizer,
Alaska Pi, Juneau Joe, Alaskan, Grandma, and others are willing to pitch in and do what they can. That is the America I know, and although we are but a few islands in the ocean, we can rock too.

One of the best services we have is our United States Post Office. Usually shipments to and from Hawaii are exorbitantly priced because of our distance from the continental United States (the mainland), but we have USPS flat rate priority mail boxes that we can fill to the max regardless of weight.

I would like to send out cans of spam (yes, Jean), corned beef, chocolate, soup, etc. to those valiant souls in Emmonak, so could you please post an Emmonak address (again) for me?

Regarding the exiting President Bush, as I watched his farewell speech, I kept singing the song from the Sound of Music – so long, farewell, auf wiederscehen, goodbye….goodbyyyyyyyye, goodbyyyyyyy, goodbyyyyYYYYY……

Then, feeling a bit masochistic, I turned to Bill Oreilly’s FOX news comment as he praised the outgoing President’s fine speech, and then Bill said he just knew how the Bush haters would spin it.

It was true – about the Bush haters spinning it. The thing about that is, there was a lot of valid reasons to hate him, from Day 1 when he was appointed, to Day 2922 when he leaves. But, because they hate Bush, they are the bad guys, they aren’t true Americans, they are ungrateful.

Well, I don’t hate Bush, but I dislike what he’s done, so I’ll get lumped in the hate group. That’s fine. Because we are true Americans, we are not bad, and I we are grateful and blessed to be living in the best country in the world (IMHO).

During his 8 years in office, we have become a county divided. Bush haters, religious righters, liberal floozies, leftest elitists, idiots and smug-nessers (is that a word?), each of them and us going off and pointing fingers. [I must say though, that we have more fun than the other guys with our SNL, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and David Letterman’s Great Moments.]

However, when January 20th comes, I will take a pledge to give back to my great country with service and forgiveness. I will look forward to a bright new day and get a whole new package of rubber bands to snap the past away.

I just hope the conservative religious right winging Bush/Palin lovers don’t get 8 years of valid reasons to hate Obama, and that the racist rednecks of the country feel disgusted enough to export themselves.

Aliceson had a clever idea, which sparked a memory in me (OK, it was only from yesterday, but the first thing to go is the short-term memory)!

Aliceson wrote: ” I also have a title suggestion for an inauguration day post: Don’t let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out. Something needs to be said about his departure. Just a thought.”

That reminded me that yesterday while reading my on-line Washington Post (just to stay abreast of what the idiot neo-cons are saying NOW) — and did you know that the short-term memory is the first thing to go?) — Charles Krauthammer (the biggest of the idiot columnists) wrote that Obama is already “rehabilitating” Bush’s legacy by appointing Geithner to Treasury and keeping Gates on at Defense.

Some blogger of like minds with us, calling him/herself woolleymammoth, composed an Ode that he called something like “Don’t let your Vindication Hit you in the Ass.” (Did you know the short-term memory is the first thing to go??)

LONG LONG PAUSE.

I FOUND IT! Here it is, with thanks to woolleymammoth, who really should join us here at MargaretandHelen!

Don’t Let the Door Hit Your Vindication
An Ode.

Dear Preznit Bush, the time has come
To kiss your term goodbye.
Our eyes are dry, you craven bum;
For you no one will cry.

Make sure you pack up all your stuff
Don’t leave a god-damn trace,
Take your lazy, worthless duff
And take your smirking face.

Be sure and take your Torture Corps
Illegal, vile, unclean,
Take all those portraits you adore –
You know the ones I mean.

Your gang of cronies, so inept
At everything but thieving
And hiding all the loot they’ve schlepped,
Take them, or not. They’re leaving.

Take your banner, too, that squawked
“Accomplished” is our “Mission.”
Take every neocon chickenhawk
With you straight to perdition.

Take Saddam’s widdle pistol gun,
And when you’ve had a few
Shoot out the chandelier for fun
Then puke on Laura’s shoe.

I’d ask you to take Cheney, too –
Please take him anyplace.
But I think you know what he’d do
He’d shoot you in the face.

Take this, take that. It’s all you know,
And let the wreckage lay.
Please, no more talking, George, just GO
Leave early. It’s okay.

You’re vindication’s in the mail –
At least Krauthammer thinks so –
But then, he’s tied right to your tail
And doesn’t mind the stink so.

posted 1/16/2009 7:19:00 AM

Soup Tuesday coming up! It’s going to be a long hard recovery, but at least we have hope there will BE a recovery!

troutay-
I would love to give you a recipe, but I don’t cook with them. I figure out how to make something and I just make it. (Which is why you will never see me bake) I can give you a sort of idea as to what to use. Let me know if that works for you.

I an going to make some soup this weekend.
There sure are some great recipes on here, I think I will use one of them.

Thanks for any and all efforts for Emo and for getting Obama elected. I know I am very appreciative of Bush getting out of DC. Bush is a walking and talking disaster. I like the one fingered salute to Bush on Tues as he flies off.

This definitely shouldn’t be cast as a native Alaskan thing but an American thing on the same scope as the Katrina disaster. This is about how we treat our fellow Americans; this is about how we define community.

Jane – good idea – people always like to donate when there’s a fancy schmancy celebrity involved (gag). But anyway – thinking along the same thoughts – contacted a person with pull in the industry who also happens to be family friend. Here’s hoping family/friendship ties are enough to twang interest. And along that same line, also contacted Sundance Foundation, Windstar Foundation, and Bill Moyers. My rolodex is getting a workout – Finally.

troutay is right.
Remember too , if this gets cast as merely a native issue it will die in Alaska in the spring.
Within the state it is rural/urban – the battle for power cost equalization and such in the bush has been muted by the railbelt/(tiny) road-system section of the state yelling about themselves.

Thank you for the contact email for the WA farm. Will definitely give that a try. It has been frustrating trying to figure out how to actually get things there. And no one seems to be taking monetary donations for food supplies.

If I find anything out, I will post. But for now I actually have to get some work done.

Love all the quilt squares and those who talk of quilting. I sell quilt fabric online as my second gig. And a house full of quilts is a cozy one.

Village life is a pretty amazing but different type of life style. For someone like Palin, with her judgemental ways, she cannot understand the life.

Her thing is money and the village mentality is sustenance. Villagers in general, do not ask for much. Juneau got a bid of $2.50 for diesel to run our Diesel generators while the hydro power lines are restored. Our monthly electric bill will go up 3 fold, it is estimated. In Emmonak, the village only uses Diesel generators for electricity and they have not seen $2.50 diesel or stove oil in years.

JuneauJoe-
Ms Palin has no right nor authority to shut down the village- Emmonak or any other. The only thing she could do would force a temp evacuation. This disaster is not one which could wash away the village or whatever.
The minerals under the area belong to Calista…
Buck up neighbor- Nothing is as hard as waiting to hear friends and /or family are ok. Hang in there.

They are a CSA farm in WA state. They send fresh boxes of food all over Alaska once a week-weather permitting. They have members in Bethel.
They may have ideas and or be willing to help get dry goods into Bethel to push on to Emmonak and surrounding villages. They do a lot of charitable food distribution in your state. Maybe you know them from Food Lifeline?

Does anyone know personally a celebrity who could bring this situation to the attention of the mainstream? It begs for an actor who is also a pilot such as Jimmy Buffet of Harrison Ford to Fly in the first shipment.

I think, Juneau, that there are enough of us “anonymous” bloggers out here that she wouldn’t dare try to close things down for these villagers.
I think, when you read news reports (the few that are out there and most often from Alaska itself),
there has been a tremendous outpouring of donations from almost all of the lower “48” in regards to this. I do not think she will be able to
cause more damage without a major outrage screaming at her.

The one thing about this whole terrible ordeal is that people everywhere, even overseas, etc. are so against her that any bid in 2012 will go nowhere. And that is a good thing.

Re Palin: I guess I fear that Palin sees the villages as a means of extracting minerals or oil and she would willingly throw the people off the land for the sake of bringing in a few bucks. I just do not trust her.

Palin said she might go to the village. My fear is that she will go and see the almost third world look of the village and then feel that it needs to be shut down.

The people in the village: Many of them have not lived in a city. It is so very different in a village.

When I left Emo, I rented a car to tour the road system. I got off the plane, got my car, went to Costco and saw more people in that one store than I saw in an entire village. It was overwhelming. I got in the rental car and got the hell out of there.

For someone who has lived in a village for years, city life would be such a drastic change,

Margaret, I just wrote about her! What an idiot she is, and him? Don’t even get me started! How two of the world’s biggest idiots have gotten so far is beyond me. I will be praying for soup as I’m out in the freezing cold on Tuesday cheering Obama on in D.C.! We leave today, will drive all night from Boston, spend money we shouldn’t, drink a lot, have a ball and be a participant in what will become history.
I’d like to think Margaret, that with our little blogs, we helped make some of this history possible.

Coming from way left field here – but just got off the phone with wonder-Mom. She is contacting folks @ Natl Council of Churches, World Council of Churches, and Ecumenical Council about the situation in Alaska. Hoping she can move mountains – keeping fingers crossed. NCC and WCC have contacts throughout globe – and have the transport apparatus for food/supply lifts. Again it will be a logistical thingy, but. . . isn’t is always? I’m thinking if the NCC, bloggers, Coast Guard, etc could just effin’ combine resources on this – and if anyone on this list is a member of a church – tomorrow is Sunday! Get your congregation involved too! Now that’s faith based action!

Yes- JuneauJoe.
The rural/urban divide is growing though.
Too many folks just think rural folks should throw in the towel and move.
We have watched this play out all over America- time and again.
Family farms falling under the wheels of factory farms…CSA farms are maybe making a turn round there… I hope they are.
Maine waterfront gobbled up by developers…
Maine-Working-Waterfront project is a really cool attempt to salvage/keep enough working waterfront for lobstermen and fisherman to land and move their catch.
Bush Alaska needs a plan…

The more I think about it, the more I think Palin is going to have to let go of some of the 5 Billion dollar surplus which Alaska has banked.

I also like the idea of the big oil giving Emmonak $100,000 for fuel.

The idea of capping fuel oil costs at $3.00 and the state picking up the difference would be good.

People do not realize that Bush Alaska is just as important as City Alaska. Those people, mostly native, have less access to modern means of making money, When the fish do not run or the environment is altered – the villages pay a severe price. At 20 and 30 below zero, it turns life threatening real quick,

it stayed below zero through April, so this is not going to go away soon. February was colder than January in 2008 in Emmonak.

JuneauJoe-
Ok. I will email the gal at Calista about whether they can act as forwarders if goods can be umbrella-ed in by a known shipper- be it via SPAN or AML. There may be a charitable org who ships in or out…
Then it becomes important for someone in WA to gather stuff and get it to barge.

Alaska Pi
Getting things onto the transport to Emmonak would be the way to go. There are two stores in Emo and they get stuff sent to them via transport. Getting room on the plane quickly may be the problem.

I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days about how dumb I can be. Have been fussing over this Yukon-Delta- what is now a crisis- mess since October and never thought to bring it up here.
Thank you – all of you- everywhere who are helping.
Every neighborhood in this country has something like this going on- too often under the radar. What is going on in your neighborhoods?

…on January 19th, Barack and I will join thousands of people all across the country for an extraordinary day of service.

Volunteers of all ages and backgrounds are committing to renew America together, one community at a time.

Whatever service activity you organize or take part in — cleaning up a park, giving blood, volunteering at a homeless shelter, or mentoring an at-risk youth — you can help start this important journey. But this is about more than just a single day of service, it’s the beginning of an ongoing commitment to your community.

Monday, January 19th, is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Dr. King taught us to live a life of service, and he led by example. He once said:

“If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized — wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But, recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness.”

Barack and I will be volunteering in Washington, D.C., our new home. I hope you’ll join us by taking part in this national call to service in your community:

JuneauJoe-
SPAN runs at least one barge a week into Anchorage from WA and AML runs 2. If Calista can take it from there it should be possible to move more material from Outside into the state- more economically.
The next trick would be finding a known shipper to umbrella the shipments. We, the hardware store, do it into here- for individuals and small businesses regularly. We are small compared to other places but known so we can have stuff attached to our weekly shipment and make costs manageable for others. We umbrella-ed supplies in for local high school metal shop that haz mat fees would have put the kibosh on for the school district…

I haven’t commented in awhile as I’ve been under the weather — and working on my neverending grad school assignments — but I had to take the time to thank all the wedgies for their AMAZING work on helping the villagers of AK.

Your actions are exactly what Obama has been referring to when he talks of renewing America together, one community at a time.

Thank you Alaska Pi, Juneau Joe, Alaskan, and Proud Community Organizer WA, for educating us and providing practical resources for us to get involved.

Oh- the ghastly gov speaks…
The guidelines for declaring emergency/disaster relief changed some years ago after a probably overextended declaration by a different gov caused trouble. This gov seems to be choosing a very narrow interpretation of the current guidelines…

Proud-
SPAN’s Wa hdqtrs are in Bellingham.If you can figure out how it operates into Yukon-Delta- whether it be via USPS- which would make it by-pass mail or not you may be able to move more stuff- better. I’m going to try to find out.

The US Postal Service is reliable. I would write on the containers – FOOD – EXPEDITE! I think there is often a waiting list of things to go into Emmonak and many villages. There is a limited number of planes going in.

A person needs to tag the outside so that it gets put on the first plane out.

I think it has gotten worse since the fuel prices have increased. They want a full plane to go into villages now – less regular service.

Greytdog- Coast Guard does a lot for folks on this end of the state… maybe an idea.

Re- SPAN. Many to most goods come into and move around Alaska through such comapnies. They are consolidators and shippers. SPAN uses subs to move items into and around state. Rates are generally lower than straight mail. UPS and FED EX are not a reality outside the railbelt in any sense folks outside know em for, as JuneauJoe noted earlier.
If things get consolidated in WA state under a KNOWN shipper’s umbrella – freight charges would drop dramtically. Issue becomes how and how well SPAN operates into the y-delta…?

Will let you guys know what we come up with but I forgot about next weeks festivities! Doh! I also forgot yesterday was Friday and many people may not have been in their offices! Doh! I am not one that keeps track of days or dates well! Ask my husband.

Frustrating. Good info on shipping weights Joe. If we have to we will go the postal route. No not that postal route! Regular post office. LOL

People send Parcel Post because it is cheaper. Parcel Post is $1.00 a pound. I did not try sending things overenight air from Emmonak but the postal transport is only 2 or maybe 3 tmes a week. Locals knew when the planes were scheduled to come in. We soud watch for the transports. It was kind of our link to the world. It was a big deal.

Been ravaging the ‘net trying to see how the blogging community and MSM are dealing with this situation. So far – nada. TPM, ThinkProgress, MoJo – all silent. Only buzz is on the progressive Alaska blogs. Going after Congress now altho that’s probably a lost cause since they’re all getting ready to party. WaPo, NYTimes, Boston Globe just keep on and on with the plane crash scenario.
Have contacts @ Coast Guard – maybe it’s time for a Berlin-style airlift? We’ll see what can be drummed up

Proud-
IF SPAN serves Emmonak and surrounding Yukon- Delta villages there may be a way to – weather permitting- to semi-expedite supplies from your state…
I am hitting the “duh…” button in my brain this am…

Alaska airlines flies into Bethel, AK and then things are flown by Grant to Emmonak, AK. The last 3 months I was in Emmonak, there was no straight flight from Emmonak to Anchorage because Grant’s King Aircraft broke an engine. People then had to fly to Bethel and then to Emo or Anchorage.

Getting things or people into Emmonak was not always easy. It took some time.

glad you are back helen. loving the soup recipes from here in arctic northern missississippi headwaters (the extra ‘s’s’ are for the extra twisty nature of the river
in our area) granpa rock, a 100% combat disabled veteran of the korean war, an airborne ranger is facing double amputation of his legs due to diabetic neuropathy. this blog is a lifeline for coping with the
stress currently trying to drag us down to
despair.

perhaps i will jot down the recipe for
fish innerds soup when i get the time : )

There is a transport from Anchorage which goes in weekly and it brings in supplies for the two stores and the businesses. I think the transport flew in on Wednesday because we could have fresh (frost bitten) vegetables on Thursday. There is also a postal transport that goes in on Friday or Saturday I believe.

It is very early here and I am awake worrying about the people in Alaska.

Alaskan I have not heard back yet from the email I sent out yesterday. I did talk to another person in our food bank yesterday and she and I are brain storming how we can get supplies of food and how we can get them to the villages.

Reading last nights postings it is daunting that it would take a month or more for the village to get anything we would mail. But we will keep working on it.

Before I head for bed, I th ough you needed A laugh.
Because of all the chaoos ( no electricity for 5 days, generaltor pumping CArbon monoxiide into the cellar, Collapsed Septic tank and drainage system, etc) my Christmas packge never got mailed til last week. Then she forfot the street number but somehoow it got here late this afternoon. Inside was a 2 foot tall stuffed moose, in a dress, ribbon in its hair,green and black checked pants with rufffle around neck with note tucked inside. Note reads as follows:

Hello

My name is Mona. Mona Moose MOss. I am your new bed buddy. I was sent to be a very lovely daily reminder of something very, very necessary that needs to be pointed out no matter what .

Postal Service takes a month to Emo, quite often. However, I had things that got to me in two weeks. But generally, a month. Some things even took two months, like my computer when it crashed. It only took two days to fix it but it took 5 weeks in the mail to get it to me.

POSTAL SERVICE IS THE ONLY WAY INTO EMMONAK or a bulk contract carrier. UPS AND FED EX GO THROUGH THE POSTAL SERVICE AND THOSE SHIPMENTS TOOK EXTRA LONG. It took less time to just go postal service but it was not quick. They put it on a plane when room is available.

Airplanes: With bad weather, planes are grounded. We had 4 basketball teams in our school for 5 days waiting for the weather to break enough for them to fly out. They slept on the floor of our classes and wandered around the halls while we had classes going on for our students.

A 3 hour delay to fly out of Emo is not unusual.
There are some pretty amazing pilots too.

Sammy K must be the love child of Limbaugh and Coulter – oh well, let’s not give the child anymore attention.

Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starting to get really frustrated with the lack of attention from the progressives in media – and the so-called humanitarian blogs like sojo.net. Let’s see, while I am thrilled the plane crash resulted in no fatalities and minimal injuries ~ and bravo to the pilot and flight crew for a job above and beyond ~ and to the tugboat and ferry captains for their quick like a bunny response. . . can we stop now with all the constant stream of punditry and experts and miracle stories. . . .please? And give some much needed air time to the situation in the Alaskan villages and while we’re at it, could we also look at the overall disregard of the Native Americans? Today a woman came in and overheard my colleague and I talking about what else we could do concerning the situation in Alaska. . . the customer’s comment: “Why can’t they use their casino money?” Apparently her only “connection” to native Americans is the Hard Rock Casino on the Seminole reservation here in FL! Oy!!!!!
And note to D: If you are going to torment us with Maryland Crab Soup, you could at least provide us with a recipe for it!!!! My mother lives in Maryland and whenever I visit, I live on crab chowder, crab cakes, crab crab crab. Must explain my sparkling personality. bwahahahaha

I haven’t lived in Alaska for a very long time and I think I still have Yukon mud on things I own. Brings back fond memories. The smell of Homer, the mud of the Yukon, the dust of Circle and the mosquitoes of Eagle. That and the ugliest grizzly bear in human history that used to live at the Anchorage zoo and got out once a year in the 70’s and 80’s. When he got out, he was roaming my neighborhood. He looked like one of the ugly thin bears from the Bear Country Jamboree from Disney. Not like the rolly polly round faced grizzlies.

If sending food, what would be the best way to get it there from WA? How long does postal service take? I would imagine that we can send anything to the c/o the City. I am just frustrated by how little will fit in the flat rate boxes. There has to be a better way for those of us in the lower 48 since the coordinated effort seems to be going rather slowly with red cross not really knowing who is responsible.

I have gotten bogged down with Mississippi mud taking a Kayak out of the water and had the Yukon mud steal my shoes with its quicksand like way.

I still have Yukon mud on my shoes and clothes and that is with regular use and washing from June to now.

The people are great. Emo has 2 stores and 1 restaurant – big stuff for a village. However, it is cheaper to by canned goods from Anchorage and have it sent to you by plane. SPAN ALASKA is what I used. I bought in the village to support the place but also bought from Span Alaska for canned vegetables.

I am wondering if Proud was able to make any progress with her volunteer work here to see if any of the food bank agencies can get powdered milk or other supplies at least to the Anch drop off.

Dennis Zaki has raised over $7000 to pay for his airfare to get video for CNN and use the leftover $5000 for the village. He was not able to get out today though and hopefully will tomorrow if weather permits.

Just to let you know, Margaret and Helen, that I’ve posted your blog site on MY blog site! You guys may like to check mine out; although it’s still in its baby stages. I’ll be adding to it on a daily basis, if I can, since mine contains all recipes. Soon, however, I’m sure I’ll be also posting some of my political thoughts: kinda like a “backwards Margaret and Helen”!

You are right I didn’t mention the dust and the dry because I was having flashback memories of breakup from some of the photos. The mud last a month or so, but it is enough for a lifetime. The mud sticks in my mind, kind of like everyone thinks it always rains in Seattle. Hey wait a minute, it does. Well not quite, but it just seems that way.

I remember traveling to Circle and by the time we got there we were all covered in a thick layer of mica glittering dust. The truck and camper were coated and it came in through every crack and crevice. We took a family photo and we looked like a group from the Grapes of Wrath traveling through the dust bowl.

SammyK- I sure hope you are a 13 yr old kid trying out the burp and fart jokes of that age group..
If you are an adult, I have news for you. The pie is all gone and the tea cups are washed and the door is right there…see it?

Travel in Emmonak,
In the winter, it is snowmachine., People travel on the Yukon River because the ice is 4 feet thick this time of year. I left Emo May 20 and the ice was still on the Yukon. People had their boats on the shore getting ready for the ice to break any day.

About April, you start seeing dirt on the ground and the ice/snow melts from the town. That is when it gets time for Quads. Whole families will ride on a Quad (4 wheel motorcycle) and they stir up the dust on the street. As the streets dry out, it becomes dustier and dustier.

When the ice melts, people use their fishing boats to travel from village to village and to visit people.get berries and go fishing. The fishing boats are about 18 to 24 feet long and they have 100+ HP engines. They are not cheap to operate.

In the summer, Emmonak is a dusty place. Not many cars in Emo. there are only about 8 – 10 miles of dusty road to drive on. The cars have few miles on them but the suspensions and radiators get beat up pretty bad.

Last year, the garbage truck broke down in the middle of winter and people had to take their garbage to the dump themselves. The dump is about 3 miles out of town, by the airport.

The houses are primarily plywood shacks that are raised off the ground in case the spring ice melt backs up the Yukon river and floods the town. (This happened 3 years ago.) Last year in May, the road to the airport got soggy and people had to walk the last 3/4 mile to the airport because transportation could not get through. The day I flew out of Emo, a grizzly who was hanging out at the dump ran past the airport and I went out and watched him run.

Sorry to hear Harold has not been well. Very good to see you back here. Missed you. Feel better, Harold.
Tuesday can’t come quick enough. I don’t like wishing my life away, but the way it has gone for the last 8 years, hurrying up the last few days seems like a very small task.

How totally right you are. Not thrifty? The Alaska Natives are the originators of Reduce Reuse Recycle. They take only what they need and use everything of what they take. Whale, walrus or seal is for food, heat, supplies, clothing, art and more. A little different than the moose chili the gov cooks up for the media and the shooting wolves from planes.

I don’t think that people will ever get it until they are in similar situations. Not wanting to work and having no work with bad fishing seasons or processing plants closing are too entirely different things.

I am sorry you saw the underbelly of Alaska on adn comments.
I can’t think of a short way to explain so I’ll take a stab at pieces of it all.
The relationship between Alaska Natives and the rest of the state’s populace is strained in many areas. The ghastly gov is opening some of those rifts wider but that’s a another story.
Unlike the lower 48 with reservations and screwed up treaties , Alaska made a settlement with First Americans in the early 70s with provisions for land and natural resources and subsistence rights. ( Technically, all Alaskans have subsistence rights but that is a whole nother mess and exacerbates the rural/urban divide. )
The model for organization is corporate. There are 13 regional corporations and many,many village corps under the larger umbrella. There are landed and unlanded groups.
The regional corps all have business interests and are supposed to operate for the full betterment of shareholders. Dividends are paid to shareholders at rates and times varying from quarterly to yearly. Most – maybe all now- have charitable arms and foundations within the regional corps and scholarship funds for education are a big deal ,as is housing for elders and so on.
There is enormous misinformation about all-the-money-they-get and they-don’t-work-for-it-either type stuff. A lot of those yahoos posting at adn think the native folk are on some kind of special welfare and have no frickin clue.

Not thrifty, my ass.
Subsistence living is hard and rewarding to those in the villages. They live on so few dollars it would scare the rest of us. (Would make the yahoo bunch wet their pants…) The dollars are for the few things they can’t make or do themselves. A PFD check and a small corp dividend, and a few bucks for fish or a part time seasonal job is it. All of it.

There is a growing public snark that somehow villages want to be propped up by everyone else and should just move and get a job as subsistence living must not be sustainable.

As I said at mudflats-
Re:subsistence lifestyle sustainability
The sustainability issue IS NOT subsistence.
It IS the one -style-fits-all paradigm of oil power- which must be transported everywhere- here, at great cost and vulnerable to complete interruption due to weather etc. Alaska will never have the usable highways etc to move materials that others are so used to. Regional solutions to transportation of materials are in their infancy and power solutions for areas best served with locally available sources – wind, water, etc – are spotty or non-existent
These are Alaska Natives, mostly, suffering now but it is an ALASKAN problem , not a native problem. We need sensible solutions to distance, weather, etc which suit regions- ferries and barges, bits of road, what rail we have, local renewable power sources, better material movement in summer…
The gov did make some kind of energy statement today- heard a snippet on the radio. She said something like renewable- will -be-the-heat.
Presumably , she means renewable energy sources will be our state focus.
Well- maybe that’s what she meant.
Anybody remember GWB saying something about putting-food-on-your-family? Same kind of gobbeldygook whatever it was…

Take the time to google Emmonak and look at the images and you can see the type of housing that makes up most of the delta area villages. Many of the houses are just aged plywood and the yards and road areas are just deep muck and mud. When there is not snow, there is mud. Imagine trying to heat those homes in -80 weather.

When I donated today, the person on the phone at the City, with grace and a little embarrasment, said “Thank you so much, we all appreciate it. God Bless you.” That was all the appreciation I needed.

I have heard about a shipment of food that is supposedly going up on Monday, but I fear the weather might change those plans and the planes cannot hold all that much cargo. I am trying to find out more. So far no one agency is firmly coordinating an effort for money donations to go towards food.

Grandma Katie,
Money is not always the answer, look at what bloggers and talking about the situation have done in two days. Many people have donated directly to the city and many others are donating food. Sometimes knowing people with connections can make more of a difference by getting the word out.

I am a displaced Alaskan living in Washington State, but my heart still belongs to Alaska. It is and will forever be my one true home.

“I got through to the City of Emmonak and was able to do a monetary donation for fuel. The took down all information and will be sending out receipts. She also asked if I wanted to leave my name because they will be placing all of the donations in the newspaper, but I said anonymous. You know because we are those horrible anonymous bloggers that are so unfeeling and uncaring about how we treat others.”

All of us have been hard at work today doing our part, in our own way, to alleviate the crisis with the Emmonek people. I think we are making headway!

Perhaps we could take a short break for a cup of hot soup. I just received an e mail of the most EXQUISITE pictures and sounds of the Harbin, China Snow and Ice Festival. We had seen short clips of it on TV. This is a rather lengthy expanded version. It is an INTERNATIONAL effort.

It just goes to show you what a fairyland of BEAUTY we humans can create when we put our heads, hearts and hands together.

I wish I could share it with you, but I don’t know how to forward an e mail onto this blog. Does anybody out there know how? There is no link.

Helen, long time reader, 1st time writer. (so CNN, no?) want you to know that you help keep me sane. that’s been a long, hard task since 2001. thank you, you must be exhausted.

i am. it’s been exhausting to be lied to by so many moving mouths; as if thru repetition, rather than reality, they can make it so. did you know that Privacy International now ranks us with Russia & China as being an “endemic surveillance society”? we now have a human rights record to rival the worst.

i understand how it happens: they just wag the flag, and all of a sudden it’s ok to break the constitution, violate human rights, and sacrifice our families. to leave us morally and financially bankrupt. to commit felonies by breaking our own laws, and treason by lying our way into war.

what i don’t get is the right-wing-nuts. they have not changed–not in tenor nor temperament, since the beginning of time. how can those who call themselves patriots not be revolted when the virtues which make us America are shat on? how can those who call themselves christians be so cruel?

that’s what i just don’t understand. well-meaning people, my parents included, who prefer propaganda. they actually believe fox news is “fair & balanced.” these are good people, who just can’t believe their leaders would lie to them, and yet they can’t believe a word any democrat has to say. so, as a result, every holiday over our family dinners, my head at some point begins to detonate. as, every day reading the “news,” does my bleeding liberal heart.

but then you come along and blow sunshine thru the smoke & mirrors and out their ass. and i love it. it’s so nice & refreshing when someone has the will & balls to speak the truth, no matter what the stepford children say. and so comforting, like having my wise grandma around again (she who wouldn’t stand for no bullshit & had the biggest heart & library in town) to tell me–Hush child, you’re not crazy. it’s just the world, talking caca again.

Thank you Margaret and Helen. I lub you lots.

PS- i know i’m at the point of abusing my blogger/bloggee privileges, but one last thing i must mention: Bush’s revisionist farewell speeches reminded me of something–

“So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The Tyrants plea, excused his devilish deeds.”
-Paradise Lost

Ann said: wonder how people survive – it seems to me that SP’s ignore of her constituents’ plight in the depths of winter smacks of Bush’s attitude during Katrina…..

Have to agree totally with that statement. I searched all the news today and could not find a piece on what is going on in Alaska except for the sites you guys have posted. I am going to pass on all the info I am reading here.

My daughter’s SO (a white house photographer) was so appalled by what happened during Katrina, he took a two year sabbactical to photograph the aftermath and eventually wrote a pictorial book called “One of Us” sponsored by Kodak. Two years later he traveled the country tracking down refugees that never returned to document their story. They still return every year for the anniversary and continue to do animal rescue as well as document and help the people. It is an amazing book that documents the turmoil and tragedy that everyone went through and are still going through.

Ah Alaskan –
I finally got through for direct donation as well.
Wish I’d been quick enough to think of the anonymous thing. Heeheehee. I just said I am your neighbor.
There is no co-ordinated oversight thingy going on at this time to gather news of all pieces of the effort together .
Weather is deteriorating for the Yukon Delta and Anchorage has come so far out of the deep freeze they were in as to have a wild warm chinook blowing the daylights out of them…

The gov was due to give an energy press conference today but have’t checked to see if she did. She is apparently still in Ancgorage from news report I read.
snark alert:
Hey- gov- unless you are heading for Emmonak, session starts early next week. Pencil it in, eh. Go to Juneau and be the gov…

———-

Granma Katie-
Stories are as important as food. They are the telling of the tale- the way we learn most times. You are doing your part. Those of us who have some “discretionary” income can do that part.

I got through to the City of Emmonak and was able to do a monetary donation for fuel. The took down all information and will be sending out receipts. She also asked if I wanted to leave my name because they will be placing all of the donations in the newspaper, but I said anonymous. You know because we are those horrible anonymous bloggers that are so unfeeling and uncaring about how we treat others.

I have tried to track down the right places to give the monetary donations, but keep getting sent other places. I have Nick Tucker’s (the one who wrote the article) phone and email. He is not in right now, but in a meeting (hopefully to help). I will try to contact him later about where to donate.

I also called Red Cross Alaska and they are not going to be in charge of getting supplies in, but are working with some other agencies to setup up the effort. I left name and email and she will give me more information when it comes available about the proper channels to donate through. I want to make sure that any donations I make are actually going to go to food, fuel and transport expenses and make it to the area.

Red Cross is working diligently with their partners and have started a list of those interested and will hopefully have some information soon. It is frustrating being in the lower 48 because we can’t get to the drop off site to actually donate food. That and the weather has been making it very difficult to get any planes in to drop the food.

Sometimes money isn’t the only answer. Sometimes talking to people creates a bigger impact.
We do what we can. And your “talks” with others helps bring this situation to light when it might have not been heard by others.

I have been reading all the blogs abou8t Emmonak and frustrated because I can do nothing to help.
It is taking every cent I hauve and more to have me stay here.
So I am doing what I do best–run my mouth. Spreading the word that help is needed.
ONe of my friends no lives in Ohio, is part Native American and has made friends with Native Americans who have conections to Canadian TRibes. She was really interested .

Keith–living in NMex and that close to TEXAS. Yuk. EVEr read “So FAr From Heaven”? “So far from Heaven, so close to Texas.
Miss the food. CAlifornia Mex just isn’t the same.

Sarah Palin just can’t shut up and govern her state like she should be doing instead of whining to the media that the media is picking on her. Gaaahhh! will she ever shut up??

She has a crisis going on in her state that she can’t be bothered with – rural natives choosing between eating or heating their homes – while she sues the federal government over declaring a Beluga whale an endangered species! God save us from this woman.

“Better late than never, but you know she will take full credit for helping her state ”
————–
She’ll try- but this time we have to make sure she doesn’t get away with it.
No more allowing her to build phony credentials…
No more…
It has to stop or the Palinistas will have fuel for their phony fires …

You Betcha (wink), she might not want to wear the designer clothes tho. It is a little cold for them at -80 and the heels won’t work too well in the snow.

Better late than never, but you know she will take full credit for helping her state when in “dire need” as her “christianly” duty. She wouldn’t have winked twice in their direction if us horrible, people hiding behind anonymous blogs didn’t start saying something first. How dare we make her look bad by showcasing the fact that she really doesn’t care about “ALL” of the residents of her state.

There is absolutely no excuse for children in this country ever going hungry or going to bed with hungry bellies. Economy or not, jobs or not, willingness to work or not, this should never happen.

Thank you for allowing us to use you parlour for a staging area for disaster relief – or leastwise not chucking us out.
We will, of course, clean up the soup spills we have made with all the dashing in and out.
Grouch- does your kitty like soup? We’ve been sloshing it round pretty good here…

Alaskan –
maybe she is…
I think we’d happily spring for some per diem and plane tickets for her to get her fanny out there and really look around too… could fill up the plane with food and necessities and have her leave the kids at home, ya know.

Δ Tine –
sorry- Monday airlift is of donated food supplies collected at Calista Hdqtrs in Anchorage.
Staff I spoke to at Calista said they would send me the same email Alaskan got… so there is that info too.
Gal was not sure what was set for fuel coming in and said call directly… Alaskan must have been tying up the lines into Emmonak ( grin ) when I tried to call a bazillion times.

The whole Yukon Delta is in similar shape. The gov damn well better be talking and, better yet, doing something about it all!!

I have yet to find out if Emmonak is on bypass mail still… do you know JuneauJoe? Makes getting packages in easier to bush.

No problem. I can’t be absolutely certain that he was actually talking to her, but that is sure what it sounded like. He started to say it and then switched to Alaskan State Government. We’ll see what comes of it.

Layla at Alaska Newspapers was really nice and she was touched by the support and how far reaching it is becoming.

I tried the city and council numbers, but the would pick up and then become disconnected. I am wondering if they are possibly part of the conference call too.

You are not going to believe this, but I just called the Sacred Heart Church in Emmonak to try to make a donation and he asked to get my number because “I am on a conference call right now with Sar….with the State of Alaska.” Do you think that all of us horrible anonymous bloggers might be making a difference and shaming her into doing something.

Yeah, point to the bloggers. I am also having information sent from Village Aid regarding making the donations for food. They are coordinating gathering and then the transport of the supplies.

I actually live in New Mexico, five miles from the Texas State Line. The predominant industry here is oil, so we have more in common with Texas than New Mexico. And being an hour from Midland we are bombarded with pro-Bush news from the local media.

Born in New Mexico, I have lived most of my adult life in Texas, so I consider myself a Texan at heart and am glad to see the pendulum swing away from the GOP’s rule.

Oh shoot- hit submit too soon…
Proud – it is likely folks at Calista have some plans which are not explicit in tundradrums doc.
There is the issue of transport- who and when and how paid for. I will be calling them later today.

where the phone numbers and so on that Alaskan refers to are available.
The dropoff address is at headquarters of the parent native corporation, Calista. Emmonak is a village within the larger structure.

Great blog ladies, you’re on the button with your comments about the war in Iraq, but Tony Blair has loads to answer for also, sadly like George W.,though, he’s going to get away with it as well. Thanks again for your blog, keep them posts coming.

What I was impressed by for the link to Village Aid through the newspapers was that the requested items were so normal and everyday items. These people aren’t needing anything extravagent, they are simply needing regular food items for kids type of meals. You can tell that their first concern is for the kids. Milk, mac and cheese, raisins; all the simple things necessary to get a balanced diet for kids.

Growing up in Alaska, milk was so expensive that we had to use powdered milk and only got fresh on rare, special occasions. So I understand the cost of some of these supplies.

I really hope KO or RM might make a mention and publicly shame Palin for her inaction. After all, it is her responsibility to make sure that the citizens of her state are taken care of. That means all of them.

Alaskan we were posting at the same time. You know I don’t know if they can but I will call the head of our foodbank and see if I can find anything out. Great idea. I do know they have their hands full with the flood areas here in WA but let me do some calling in awhile.

To our Alaska friends I have been following the Native Alaskan issue because of mudflats. I have been reading that blog and others out of Alaska since Palin was announced as McCains running mate.

I sent off my donation immediately. I am sad and disgusted by Sarah Palin. Still no response from her. Evidently she is to busy getting ready for an interview with Glen Beck on Faux News next week to be bothered with people freezing and starving in her own state.

What I find appalling in all of this is that these issues have been brought up over and over again with her and her administration. She has used the native Alaskan people in her campaigning like she was their champion, because as you know Todd is part native Alaskan. You betch ya so therefor and also she is an expert in that area to.

Alaska’s Rural Advisor on her cabinet resigned in October. Has Sarah replaced this person? NO! The response from her people is that they have been interviewing but have not found anyone yet. Hmmmm Evidently her real response was to reallocate the money from this postition to her own office for more PR people. Yep that was definately more important than a Rural Advisor you betcha!

For someone who claims to be an energy expert why is it the safety net for the remote Alaskan villages is to get heating oil from Venezuela? Yep you read that right Hugo Chavez. Would someone tell me why she touts taking care of her own all the freaking time and this is occuring? Is it that her own means just her immediate family and well maybe the big donors to her campaign coffers? This woman is disgraceful in so many ways that I have lost count.

Don’t get me started on the sub cabinet she set up headed by Talis Colberg. Another do nothing entity. They will have a report by Friday. Friday? Ahhhh I see lets wait until people are dead and then it might become an issue! Sound like anyone one else we know?

Seems to me like the Beluga whale she is fighting from getting on the endangered species list and considers a speed bump in her way that the Native Alaskans are another irritant and speed bump to roll right over.

Sorry folks I know I don’t live in Alaska and maybe I don’t have the right to address these issues and many of you from Alaska I am sure can do it so much better and more indepth than I ever could but to me this is a human crisis period. People are hungry and freezing. Seems that the word crisis should say it all even to brain dead politicians.

Being an ex-Alaskan (but my heart is always there), the plight of the villages hits me especially hard. Being a SP anti-fan, her lack of action is unforgiveable.

Here are two numbers: 907-348-2413 This is the number for Alaska Newspapers. They have a facility in Anchorage that will take donations of food and money for food supplies. They are only asking for regular food items that any family would need. Peanut Butter, milk, dried fruit, etc.

The next number is 907-949-1720 This is the Emmonak Tribal Council and they will take monetary donations to help subsidise the heating oil costs.

I intend to send some along to both today.

Also, calling out to Proud, is there anything that Food Life Line can do to get supplies into those remote areas or work with other agencies? Emmonak does have a small food bank in the area.

As to the plane crash yesterday, I think the hero of the day is definitely the pilot who remained calm and made excellent decisions regarding his responsibility to his passengers. Situations like this can certainly restore faith in the goodness of human nature.

Pie today will be sweeter knowing that help is on the way to the villages in AK.

Looks like hurricane aftermath is the same everywhere. My daughter’s ceiling had to collapse before State Farm agreed to replace our roof after Hurricane Andrew. My sister lost her home on Sullivan’s Island to Hurricane Hugo.

The overwhelming sense of community after a crisis is unbelievable – you feel you can’t do enough for people you don’t even know. I don’t think I’ve felt so good about doing something for the greater good until I started volunteering for Obama!

At least we have warnings before hurricanes and can take precautions – I don’t envy those of you who live in earthquake or tornado zones.

Here in Australia we’ve just been able to watch a documentary giving background to Obama’s political career etc – an interesting way to set things up for the inauguration celebrations.
So many ordinary people around the world are waiting with hope that Obama and his team do well.
We’ve also, of course, had coverage of Bush’s final pronouncements and once again can’t believe his gall.
He is a deficient (but so oblivious to his shortcomings) individual. Will he end up with just enough cronies and back slapping types around for him to keep up the pretense that he was any sort of a leader?
Our former Prime Minister, John Howard, was awarded the Freedom Medal by Bush this week, and this brought a lot of negative comment here. Yes, he represented Australia as a member of the Coalition of the Willing but it all caught up with him: he stood for election and lost his “seat” and his government was tossed outa year ago. He was defeated and did not stand down at the end of his term as I think is often implied. Many people refer to him as “the rodent”, a term actually devised by someone on his side of politics!
This blog is one of the interesting ones around the wolrd of “ordinary people” and it is great to read articulate posts and comments.
I’ll finish by just saying Sarah Palin and her neglect of the people in the far flung areas of Alaska still gets attention elsewhere in the world. I’m from subtropical Australia, it is the middle of summer here and you wonder how people survive – it seems to me that SP’s ignore of her constituents’ plight in the depths of winter smacks of Bush’s attitude during Katrina…..

Helen, hope everyone is feeling better in your home soon. Happy New year.

Palin is just stoking the base up for 2012. the right wingnuts just hate the dreaded “mainstream media.” Since she looks like an ass, I say keepit up.

As for George, his obsession with a legacy while the war between Hamas and Israel wages and the economy tanks is consistently characteristic of his incompetence. He shoudl be tried and taken to Guantanamo to lve out the rest of his days with Dick Cheney. No that would be a punishment.

Mr. Holder, assuming that you are confirmed, if you don’t try these two for war crimes and war profiteering then how will you ever be able to discuss the rule of law with anyone else?

They feel they are above the law.

3 days 18 hours 28 minutes. I’ll forego the soup for a nice glass of champagne to celebrate the end of an error.

In a large, heavy pot set over medium heat, saute bacon until browned and crisp, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove to drain on paper towels. Crumble coarsely and set aside. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the drippings in the pan.

Add onion and celery to the same pot, still over medium heat. Saute, stirring, for 2 minutes. Then add yams, 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Saute, stirring, until slightly softened, 3 to 4 minutes. Add 3 1/2 cups of the broth, thyme and sage, and bring mixture to a simmer.

While mixture is coming to a simmer, place flour in a small bowl and whisk in the remaining 1/2 cup stock to form a slurry to thicken the soup. Whisk the slurry into the soup once it comes to a simmer. Reduce heat and continue to simmer until vegetables are tender but not mushy,about 10 minutes.

Whisk in the half-and-half, bring mixture to a simmer and cook 1 minute. Add turkey and cook 1 to 2 minutes to warm through. Taste and season with more salt and pepper, if needed. (The soup can be prepared 1 day ahead; cool, cover and refrigerate along with the bacon. Reheat soup over medium heat, stirring often.)

Divide chowder among 6 soup bowls and garnish each serving with some crumbled bacon and, if desired, with fresh sage and thyme sprigs.

Obviously, this is a great recipe for holiday leftovers but during other times of the year, I’ve found buying 2 or 3 slices — sliced 1/2 inch thick — of roasted turkey at your store’s deli counter works great (I’m not a huge roasted turkey lover so I rarely cook it outside of holidays).

In the “Getting the Bad Guys” post comments, I said I would tell you about our contribution to the Red Cross during the aftermath of Hurricane Iniki. I promised to keep it short. That was yesterday. I lied.

SEVEN DAYS after the storm, a very well dressed man and woman showed up at our house with Red Cross credentials. They had clipboards and were doing ‘Damage Assessment’. They wandered around and asked to use the bathrooms. OK. Naturally we had to flush with a bucket of our precious water that the Army brought. They were delighted when they found out we had ice! They left their cards and told us to call them if they could do anything. (Wait in line two hours at Safeway to use the phones?) They were staying in the one and only hotel on the east side with HOT water. HOT showers!!! What luxury!!!!! But no ice. We gave them a zip-loc bag full of ice and they left.

Now, we could have been dead or buried under rubble and they show up SEVEN DAYS LATER on our itty-bitty island?

More than a generation before during WWII in Europe, I remembered what my brother R.G. had written about the Red Cross. They gave the GI’s coffee and donuts – but they had to PAY for them. Like soldiers in a combat zone had plenty of money in their pockets.

Perhaps I am not being fair since those were my only two personal experiences with the Red Cross. But have you ever noticed that every time there is a disaster reported ANYWHERE, the next scene is the Red Cross right up there on the screen with a phone number for contributions? A ziplog bag of ice and flushing after them with our precious Army water was our last contribution to the Red Cross.

As Sally said, out here we love to ‘talk story’ at length, that is, chit-chat, shoot the breeze. Our house was only a year old. We had lived in the guesthouse while it was going up so we knew the men well. We talked story a lot. Right after the storm, we drove over people’s lawns whenever we couldn’t make it through the downed trees and telephone lines to get to our builder’s house.

He already had our old crew up repairing HIS roof. We were first in line. Our builder said his men had to get paid to take care of their own damage before any insurance claims came in. That could take months. They were experienced from a previous hurricane. My husband told him to fix our roof before any more rain came in and did more damage. We would pay right away.

Within four days we had the old crew of men back up on our roof. They were pleased to find that Cassidy, our one legged wild rooster, was still roaming around ruling his fiefdom.

Lots and lots of people didn’t have a roof left to fix or money to pay for it if they did. Our friend and ‘keeper’ John lost his house and just about everything except the clothes on his back.

On our first trip to Hawaii, we stayed at the Coco Palms Hotel. It was a lovely old authentically Hawaiian sprawling hotel on historic grounds with the largest Royal Palm Tree grove in the islands. That’s where we fell in love with Kauai and each other all over again. The movie “Blue Hawaii” with Elvis Presley was filmed there.

The Coco Palms was terribly damaged. There was a huge fight between the owners and their insurance carrier. The insurance people said the hotel was riddled with termites and was about to fall down anyway so refused to pay. Litigation ensued for YEARS. I’m not sure what the status is now except it is still sitting there untouched – more or less – just as it was after Iniki, 17 YEARS AGO. We drive by it on the highway every time we go to the ‘big cities’ of Kapaa and Lihue. We have always been able to see lamps and shredded drapes hanging in the windows.

What infuriates me is this. What about all the furniture, bedding, linens, dishes and pots and pans from the restaurant, etc, etc? I’m sure SOME of it could have been salvaged THEN and given to people who had lost everything.

Our insurance company took pictures of all our damage. Surely, if they needed proof for the litigation, there must have been pictures taken.

What is needed after disasters is someone like you ProudCOWA with the expertise to COORDINATE the collection and distribution of usable goods as well as food and clothing.

We had to make regular runs down the hill to get gas for the generator. I always felt like we were a traveling incendiary bomb with that big can of gas in the back!!! When we got home there were two huge royal blue tarps for the roof by the front door. I don’t know who left them, some agency I guess. Our roof had already been fixed so we didn’t need them.

People made up signs and put them in their front yards of things they needed. Tarps were on some of the signs. We knocked on doors and gave them away. Pretty soon there was a sea of royal blue roofs wherever you looked on the island.

Other signs were for, what else, ice!!!!!! We started freezing blocks of ziplog bags and passing them out. One grateful couple had a baby and needed it for the baby’s formula. My husband took them a daily bag of ice.

There were hundreds of homemade signs that said, “Mahalo, military!” Mahalo is Hawaiian for “Thank you!”

On the one year anniversary after the hurricane, we went to a restaurant in the Safeway shopping complex. There were some people standing around talking and laughing. One of them pointed up. On the tall flagpole was the American Flag with the Hawaiian State Flag below. Some clever soul has fashioned a flag the same size as the others and ran it up there below the other flags. It was a royal blue tarp.

Please, dear Friends…go to the Mudflats blog that ’empish’ posted and donate! The ’emmonak’ tribe is in dire trouble and will literally die without donations for heating oil and food. This is an emergency as great as a hurricane or a tornado! I made my donation through PayPal but there is an address where you can send money. Times are hard for everyone now, but please…Empish is right…these people are our neighbors! Thank you…

Please, dear Friends…go to the Mudflats blog that ’empish’ posted and donate! The ’emmonak’ tribe is in dire trouble and will literally die without donations for heating oil and food. This is an emergency as great as a hurricane or a tornado! I made my donation through PayPal but there is an address where you can send money. Times are hard for everyone now, but please…Empish is right…these people are our neighbors! Thank you…

Dear Margaret
Was wondering what to do with today’s chicken stock. Thanks for the recipe. Will have a bowl of soup for the US of A on the 20th here in India. You are a great person and a fabulous writer.

Set Aside 4 T of Broth. Bring rest of broth to roiling boil
Mix together broth and cornstarch to make thickening roux. (adjust cornstarch/liquid as need to make about 1/8 c of roux)
When broth has come to roiling boil, add in beaten egg, stirring constantly.
Add cornstarch roux while still stirring. Stir until soup as desired thickness.
Garnish with minced chives.
Eat, grab your book, and go back to bed. (make sure stove is off)

sophie’s un/non-repeatable soup reminded me of a restaurant I loved in starving college student days…
It was called something like International Peasant. The gal made soups and breads from all over the world for lunches everyday and special dinners from different cultures every evening.
For students she had a bottomless bowl-o-soup special- a bowl you truly could fill as many times as you wanted and great hunks of real brown bread. She would dump all kinds of stuff in every batch- never the same and always substantial, filling, and spicy. She allowed us to stay and study between lunch and dinner hours if we didn’t try to solve the world’s philosophical or political problems too energetically- you know, banging the tables and hollering type stuff.
What a lovely woman she was. What a nice place it was…
Couldn’t begin to say what those soups were made of…

While I am ranting. I might as well as add Global warming and depletion of fish.

Subsistence people live off the land. If the land or climate changes, it alters the village. 30 years ago, in Emmonak, it was 50 below zero in the winter time. They see a warming happening, (A multi year study has shown steady melting of the tundra along the Yukon. )

There is also the issues of drilling for oil and extracting minerals, which Palin is encouraging. If any of the methods foul the streams, rivers, Bering Sea or Bristol Bay, the subsistence people are directly affected.

Whole villages crumble if they do not have their food supply or if the costs of fuel are too high.

Village food costs: Milk has to be flown in. You use irradiated milk, powdered or pay $8.00+ a gallon for regular milk. Soda is much cheaper and village kids have bad teeth as a result. They drink lots of pop. Fruits and vegetables are hard to come by and expensive – rare to eat them for most villagers.

Palin’s husband is a Yu’pik but I don’t believe Sarah or her husband have any idea of subsistence living as practiced in the villages.

These people shoot animals to eat and then the elders can use the fur to make clothing. They are a great and noble people whom I respect a great deal.

Oh – and just an aside (then I have to do the doggy walk because they are all standing at the door) – I also sent a note to Saddleback Church/Rick Warren about this – and requested that Saddleback might consider a purpose driven response in the form of monetary donations for heating oil and food to be sent directly to the villages as listed on Tundra Drums.
Okay, dogs are doing their potty dance.. .gotta go!
Take care all, stay warm!

For folks in lower 48: here are some ideas as to how to get the word out about the Alaskan Villages need for heat and food –
Letter to your Editor – either online or USPS
Email your friends and family with links to Mudflats, ADN, and Pi’s links
Any time someone brings up “Change” have them put their change where it’s needed – the Alaskan Villages
Contact your own reps in Congress and ask them what they are doing about this? (I just sent an email to Nelson and Martinez)
Contact change.gov and let the Obama Transition team know that this situation MUST be addressed IMMEDIATELY
If you’re a Dem, contact Tim Kaine the new Head of the DNC
If You’re a Republican – well. . . . um. . . yes. . . call SP direct and tell her God wants her to resign.

Empish, you just took Step 1. in helping to identify the problems of the Emmenek people in Alaska.

Step 2. Why is there a problem? Because it is cold in Alaska this time of year. Apparently they have no heat and have no access to food or are too poor to buy it.

Also we all know their governor is incompetent and either unwilling or unable to get help to her citizens.

Step 3. We here on this blog are learning about it for the first time and getting the word out to call attention to their plight. I’ll tell everybody I know. How about all the rest of you bloggers? Maybe together we can get some fast action for help.

Sophie, I’ve had a few enthusiastically seasoned soups – I too will add potatoes, but usually I just add in more broth. I remember one time I was making chili (and not remembering I had earlier pried off the “sprinkling” thingy on the spice jar), and proceeded to dump in about a quarter cup of dried red chilis! YIKES. Thankfully my SO loves super spicy food – but still, this was for company – so I added in another cup of crushed tomatoes, some more onions, some more beans etc. . . and some more liquid. The thing as still enough to set your mouth afire – and I swear I could have powered a 747 nonstop around the world after eating a bowl of that chili. I now always check to make sure I haven’t pried anymore of those stupid plastic holey-lids off. . . oy!

To add to what JuneauJoe said- the early river freeze this fall and missing of last supply runs in has been talked about from the moment it occurred- over and over,
This situation is not out-of-the-blue.We had time as a state to step up before it became the crisis it is now.

STARVATION IN EMMONAK. I was in Emo 1/08 to 5/08. The people are subsistence natives. They rely on a fall King Salmon run and they sell salmon gotten from the Yukon River. This fall, they got few Kings so they did not have any to sell and they did not even have enough to feed themselves through the winter. (On good years, they barely make it actually.) They also get their moose. If they do not have food from nature, they will not survive to be honest. There are no trees in or around the Yukon Delta so they are stuck with fuel oil.

The Yukon River at Emo was frozen from late Oct to the end of May in 08. They rely on June – early Oct open waters to fish and get supplies in for the winter. The months that the Yukon River was navigable, the stove oil costs were still high as was diesel and gasoline. The River froze up in early Oct this year, so they could not get the last delivery of diesel and stove oil. They are running out of both now and it would have to be flown in now. I paid $300.00 to fly in to Emo from Achorage (1 way.) It is not cheap to fly in and out.

The people live in shacks compared to what people in the lower 48 are used to. Many do not have running water or a toilet in the house. I have seen 10 people live in a 20 by 30 foot house.
Many speak Yu’Pik, the native language.

It is often 20 below zero and under good conditions, remote village living is not easy.

I am bothered that Sarah Palin has not addressed this issue. I was also bothered when Gov Palin went to a retirement town in Florida and talked about it reminded her of villages in Alaska. Florida retirement spots cannot be compared in any way.

I would just like to end by saying that the people of village Alaska are great, hard working people. They deserve better with the high costs of fuels and food. (Cost of food and MILK IS HIGH.)

empish-
I’m sorry about your noxious neighbor. I have cousins near you who want to wear bags over their heads when they go Outside now.
Thanks for coming in with more links. Folks here got wind of Emmonak yesterday and have been stepping up.
Thank you , to all of M & H’s Pie Posse- whether it is Emmonak or a shelter for people or critters or food and water and phone trees or an arm, virtual or real, round theshoulders of our neighbors with PTSD or physical therapy needs –
YES,WE CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Make sure it is well tied- I do not want to open it , I will just throw it in the manure bin. By the way , you might be able to watch the inauguration on the computer. Try CNN. I have friends that do that for important events.

“My little lost boy just got called up from his National Guard unit to go and help with security in DC.
I told him to wear long underwear, wool socks, and to do us proud. Hopefully he gets to see Obama if only from a distance.”
————————–

Oh troutay-
How exciting! If he has room could you/would you ask him to take all of us in his pocket (heart ) and leave the flap open so we can be there too?
I don’t have TV and almost never miss it.I surely will Tuesday…

I just finished watching Bush’s farewell address. What a prince. Complete denial of reality!!!!! I wonder who wrote the speech. Wolf Blitzer said that Bush had been very gracious for the past couple of WEEKS. How about the other eight and a half YEARS?

Anyway, Raji, I sympathize with your dental woes. I am down to ten of my own. What hurt the most was losing my $2,500.00 molar! It had had fillings, crowns, root canal, and restoration over the years. We had been through a so much together. But the oral surgeon said “termites” had really gotten to it so it had to go.

I now have two partials. They took a little getting used to but they work! As I lose any others, one by one, they can be added to a partial. I won’t have to have a whole new one made. Welcome to the Gummy Club!

Sally, about Portuguese Bean Soup. You probably know the saying. “People in heaven want to go to Kauai when they die.” Well, the first time I tasted Portuguese Bean Soup, I knew I had already died and gone to Paradise!!! Soooooooooo good!!!! A great big pot of it is even better the next day when the flavors have blended together.

I just remembered a plausible story about pork, which of course, includes bacon. As you know, both the Jewish and the Islamic religions FORBID eating pork. Why? Here’s why. In the Middle East where both religions originated in basically desert climates, food was scarce. When the early people domesticated animals as a food source, it was mostly cattle and sheep because there were patches of pastureland. Wild boar, which became pigs, competed with humans for the limited food sources. Pigs don’t graze!!! Thus, pigs were forbidden by law. The origin of the TRADITION prohibiting pork.

In both Judaism and Islam, religion and law were the same. As peoples migrated around the world into areas where food sources were more readily available and varied, pork gained acceptance with SOME peoples, but the LAW remained.

IMO, theocracies of any kind are not such a good idea. We have been coming close to an unofficial theocracy here in the U.S. even though it is specifically NOT sanctioned in OUR Constitution. If other countries want to have a theocracy, well, I guess maybe that’s their business.

I want to add that when Alaska Pi was writing about this problem in Alaska I had some trouble understanding it; I believe I was concerned about something else; any way I made a visit to Mudflats. I had never been there before ( although some folks have visited from there)and it was a good trip for me. I would like to suggest a visit and you can easily get there from Helen’s front porch or parlor by clicking on the link provided earlier by Empish (wasilla). I hope you go.

Jean, I think what would solve all three questions would be accountability….. but not who you might think.
A small part of the Declaration of Independence says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”
The only thing I know to be true is that we have allowed having our constitution shredded, allowed being lied to, allowed having our hard-earned money stolen, allowed having loved ones die in a war solely for profit of a few less-than-humans of unmeasurable greed and hubrus, allowed fellow humans to suffer, allowed becoming a nation without compassion or credibility in our global village. We all let it happen. Every single one of us is responsible for allowing the entire Bush Reich to do what they have done, and all the way down to the state and local levels. WE let it happen.
We talk about wanting a transparent government, but we don’t demand it. We talk about democracy, but we don’t have one. We have freedom of religion to a certain extent, but we sure don’t have freedom from religion. We let it all happen.
Someone quoted in a previous post about being the change we want to see in the world. My intention for this new year is to be just that. I alone am responsible for the decisions I make; whether I choose violence to solve problems or whether I choose understanding; whether I decide to steal or whether I decide to earn; whether I choose to be right or whether I choose to learn. I will also hold accountable those in government who derive their powers from the CONSENT of the governed, who become destructive of the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
I sure hope there will be real change, but I’m from the generation that values integrity, character, honor (like many of you) and I’m afraid that those qualities are unknown and meaningless in today’s world. I wonder if we can alter or abolish a toxic government if nobody is willing to take any responsibility for any of it. It’s all up to us, we can talk about it or we can make it happen.
That being said, I need to apologize for a previous comment. I alluded to Sarah Palin as being a dog. I apologize to my two critters for insulting them.

Helen–so glad to see you back. WAs getting worried about y ou . When my SO did n’t want to do something, he could make his temp soar to 104/ Af ter I caught on to what he was doing, I fluffed his pillow, fixed necessary pills, etc and then took off for wh ere we were su pposed to go. Wouldn”’t you know, the next day he was fine!!

For the first time ever, I am going to spend next Tuesday glued to TV!!

“So I have a legacy for you Mr. President. When you go to war with other people’s children, you need to take it seriously. Because when you are President and you take your country to war, they ALL become YOUR children. ”

Ann, I think Empish wants people to help and to know the full story – which is that SP is not concerned about Native Alaskans but about her own magical history tour. In this case, we can help these villagers by donating as needed AND by raising a ruckus and awareness that this will not stand – not on our watch.

empish, not sure why the MSM isn’t picking up this story. Per ADN, even Sen Lisa M. brought it up and spoke to the BIA. (Maybe that’s why nothing’s been done). But I just had to relate this story – at work today, a couple of us were talking about this – in front of customers/clients. One quiet gentleman -and I use that word in all respect to this person – overheard us talking and started asking for more information. We gladly provided it – including writing down web links to Mudflats and ADN and Alaska Pi’s link to Tundra Drums. Now this gentleman is a quiet good man – and he also has the ears of the Florida representatives in DC. About three hours later he came back with Starbucks (he’s also heard us moaning about needing coffee) and to let us know he’d talked with Sen Nelson about this – and to Dr. Dean. Maybe he’ll be able to get some wheels turning. I can only hope. But then, that’s what this is all about – hope and action.

I love this blog. Rita (from Goldivas) just pointed to it on my own blog (www.forthefirstime.ca) and it is so good to meet kindred spirits. I, too, resort to soup-making when all else fails. I do notice that the soups I make can get a little spicy when somebody’s really ticked me off. I’m guessing that the soup I’d serve George W or Sarah P would be more than a little “notched up” in heat. They’re both so obtuse they’d probably just blame that on the media too.

while donations are certainly welcome, I encourage you all to boost this story on the Huffington Post and other major sites. This needs to be on the evening news of every major network. Our bloggers have raised over $6000 in aid withing 48 hours, Our governor is silent and no action has been taken by our state government.

Thanks for sharing your yummy recipe ~ and for letting us overrun your porch and parlor! So sorry to hear about Harold – hopefully he’s on the mend – and remind him whenever he whines, you gave up Carol Burnett. . . men!

Just a general hello to all! I’ve been watching the coverage of the plane emergency land in the Hudson. Thank goodness everyone survived! I’m in CT, and I can tell you it is FREEZING in this part of the country! I hope they are able to warm those passengers up mighty swiftly!

I’m so excited for Tuesday to come. I may be watching the coverage of MSNBC at the movie theater. It might be fun to meet others just as enthusiastic as I am.

Lucy, if you can, just sign up for the “RSS Feed” on this blog. When you do that, an email is sent to your address letting you know when there is a new entry on this blog!

My little lost boy just got called up from his National Guard unit to go and help with security in DC.
I told him to wear long underwear, wool socks, and to do us proud. Hopefully he gets to see Obama if only from a distance.

Sophie wrote:I’d share the recipe with you but it was a leftover from the freezer .. and it was a soup that had started out as such a complete failure that it was totally inedible (too much black pepper).

Sophie, next time you over season, throw in some potatoes whch will absorb the spices. I did this when I over seasoned with Tiger sauce. Some say throw out the potatoes but I found them quite tasty. The soup I ended up with could never be duplicated either.

Love all the soup recipes. Helen, glad to see you back and hope Harold is better. There’s nothing like soup for the soul especially on these cold winter nights.

Mighty glad you’re back Helen and hope Margaret, you will join us again soon. We know you are taking good care of Harold and trust he will be fit soon. Don’t forget to take care of yourself too!

Let’s all sit down with a steaming bowl of soup and pick up where we left off.

I’m so proud of my newly acquired computerese. IMO, what we need to do is:

1. Identify the problems.

2. Figure out why we have them and what we have to do next.

3. Take action to correct them. (That does NOT include violence or military action.)

Simple, huh.

This is the sticky part. We get bogged WAY down on Step 2. We identify the problems as we see them from the perspective of our own limited experience in our own teensy-weensy little corner of this world in a teensy-weensier little corner of the universe.

We dig in our heels with our biased opinions, and won’t budge an inch. Then continue to justify and bolster those opinions with minutiae, ‘ad infinitum’ and ‘ad nauseum’. All the while sitting around pontificating like pundits on TV.

When it degenerates into blah, blah, blah of which PERSONALITIES said this or said that we get nowhere. Only perpetuate the problems.

One thing we have to guard against starting January 20. PERSONALITIES come and go. History has shown that the more oppressed a people have been, the more they become OPPRESSORS once they gain the power to do so. That doesn’t get anybody anywhere.

Peanut Butter and Carrot soup sounds so weird that it just might be very good!

I gave myself an immersion blender and 4-qt dutch oven for Christmas. Just tried them out a couple of nights ago with the following recipe…

Onion-Leek-Potato Soup

1. Clean a leek (cut in half lengthwise and then rinse between all the leaves).
2. Rough-chop an onion and the leek (including the green ends).
3. Add Olive Oil to Dutch Oven and heat.
4. Toss onion & leek with salt & pepper into Dutch Oven and Saute (or rather, sweat) until soft (5-10 minutes). (Note: Toss in a handful of chopped mushrooms at the same time, too, if you have them lying around.)
5. While sweating the onions & leeks, chop some potatoes into 1″ chunks (I had 3 large Yukon Gold’s in the pantry that I used).
6. Toss potatoes into the Dutch Oven along with a can of chicken stock. Add water if more liquid needed.
7. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer until potatoes are done (roughly 15 minutes?).
8. Remove from heat, and, with the immersion blender, blend until fairly smooth. (Season w/salt/pepper to taste).

Very easy. And I was surprised at how tasty it was, even though no other seasoning was used besides salt and pepper!

brighid, I love picturing the Palin’s neighbor’s house. Talk about ratcheting in the screw everytime she looks out her window.

I do feel sorry for GW Bush, he’s a loser, and I feel sorry for sad sack losers. I haven’t gone to see “W” yet, but seems he’s a loser in his father’s eyes too. However, if they were to poll me about approving him, NO way. I’m sympathetic, not stupid.

Sarah Palin – I feel no sympathy. She’s a loser that doesn’t know it. With the adolation of Joe the Plumber and the religious right who think she’s the real one, she still thinks she’s the best of the best. Well, I’ve run out of rubber bands to snap away my dislike of her, but now that she is the LOSER, I kind of enjoy the stupid things that come out of her mouth. She is the main reason McCain lost – those undecided or possible McCain supporters turned to Obama as soon as Palin started opening her unscripted mouth. McCain has been a gentleman and a class act in not shouting it out that she was a MISTAKE!

Juneau Joe, maybe one of the reasons the Palins have been scarce for a while is that they didn’t care for the neighborhood around the governor’s mansion. When I came on a cruise in September, I noticed that the yard of the beautiful home across the street from the governor’s mansion was completely covered in Obama/Biden signs. There were lots of other Obama/Biden signs in the neighborhood, although there wasn’t another display as enthusiastic as that one. If I thought I was hot sh*t in the way she seems to think she is, I probably wouldn’t appreciate going out every morning to pick up my many newspapers and seeing my neighbor’s yard all abloom with signs for my opponent.

I hope Harold is feeling better. I’ve never had peanut butter in my soup either, but when we were in Virginia last October, I saw peanut soup on the menu at the restaurant at Mount Vernon. I asked about it, and the waiter brought me a small sample. It was quite tasty. I’m not sure I could eat a whole bowl though, as it was rather rich. But I’d guess that just a few tablespoons in a pot of soup would add a lot of flavor without being too much.

And, as usual, Helen, you are spot on about Bush and Palin. The two of them really need a friend who will tell them to stop talking. Or maybe someone should tell the media to stop listening – then the rest of us wouldn’t have to hear it. Oh, wait. Sarah Palin keeps running to the media to complain about . . . the media. No, I guess it’s better for us to be informed, all of us anonymous bloggers.

She still hasn’t really figured out how the bloggers affected the election though. It’s not that we were all talking to one another and writing about everything on the news that resulted in the Repub loss – it’s because we all voted.

Listening to the 60’s hits on my radio.
I heard “I can see for miles and miles”
My husband and I just looked at each other and said
in unison Sarah Palin!

Thank you for the recipe, hope Harold feels better and I was worried about you, too!
Didn’t hear from you for a while.
It has been so cold here -20 at night and it is now a great big 1 degree.
Stay warm and well everybody!

Helen you are so right about the hubbies and being sick. We love them to death, but every time they get sick it is “this is the sickest I have ever been in my entire life”. Meanwhile the moms can have the flu too, but have to take care of all the kids and the hubby and do 5 loads of laundry throughout the night to get new bedding and towels for the kids when they are too young to take care of themselves.

If one of the kids has a cold, the hubby sniffs and groans and says “I think I am getting it too; I don’t feel so good”. My mom always taught me mind over matter. Refuse to get sick and I rarely do. The only time I have ever gotten the flu as an adult was once each time when I was pregnant. I see it as the kids actually got the flu and took me down with them.

Sarah Palin is getting to be like a broken record. I too am tired of listening to her whine. “It’s all about me.” Is that woman totally devoid of any compassion for others? When she said Katie Couric wasn’t the center of everyone’s universe, it was so catty and just seem that SP was upset that she wasn’t being the center of the universe. I can’t help but always be reminded of the mean girls in High School when I hear her.

GW’s attempt to rewrite history is just laughable at this point. I listen and think, can he really think that we will fall for that? I really think that he feels that if he says it often enough, it will become true. Hey GW, we are on to you. You can’t fool us.

One of my grandsons (17) told me last week he didn’t like soup, never had.

next meal? you guessed it. I simply put it in front of him at the computer, and said “i know you think you don’t like soup, but this is Grandma’s “kick-ass” soup.” and i walked away and busied myself elsewhere. On my next pass through, i watched him casually return again and again to the bowl for just another taste, in the midst of his Myspace emailing and talking to his girlfriend on the phone. (who says men can’t multitask?)

Finally, he looked up at me and said “Grandma, what in the heck did you put in this soup? Crack?”

“you mean it’s addictive?”

“ummm. yeah. it is. it really is.”

I’d share the recipe with you but it was a leftover from the freezer .. and it was a soup that had started out as such a complete failure that it was totally inedible (too much black pepper). I had so much invested in it, and was pretty much at the end of the line at the time for foodstuffs so i refused to toss it out, and started doctoring it … and by the time i was done I couldn’t remember what i had done to it to ever be able to replicate it.

Man, these soup recipes are KILLIN’ me. I’m hungry and they all sound deelish and I wish I could eat some RIGHT NOW! Helen, that PB Carrot soup sounds (surprisingly) yum-o-icious. Thank you for the idea.

BTW, I hope Harold feels better soon. What is it about husbands being such babies when they are sick? Mine too!

I hope that Harold is feeling better! It seems the crud, as I call it, is making it’s way across the US.

“Speaking of soup, there isn’t enough in the world to cure what ails Sarah Palin. Is she maybe a little touched in the head? I mean, I keep hearing that she’s still complaining about how the media “mistreated” her. But she seems to forget no special affects were used.”

Nope no special effects just reasonable questions that seem to have a special affect on the very deficient Sarah Palin. In the words of Whoopi Goldberg to Anne Coulter “Another One that Can dish it out but can’t take it!” INMHO.

As far as George Bush I think his ratings went up because people are feeling sorry for him. He has been acting like a sad puppy and rewriting history in the process. Misplaced feelings at best. Reality will hit when they really get a dose of what he has left behind and what the Obama administration will have to do to undo the disasters this administration keeps throwing on the pile.

I also find Laura Bush’s response of late very intriguing. I keep wondering how she and Lynne Cheney can even condone either of thier husbands actions. I have come to conclusion that all of them SP also are either very medicated our drinking heavily! You Betcha!

Helen, I hope all are well at your place…. &I thought it was chicken soup that cures all ills! Your soup sounds good ,it does include chicken broth;and then some pie for dessert.YUM. I believe I will have some for lunch. Werner: I watched the video. I was not sure what I was getting into at first(kind of scary music and the German language that seemed strange) but I kept going. The graphics are excellent,the presentation was clear as was the conclusion.Perhaps it oversimplifies…but Thanks for sharing it.

Helen! I know you are fond of your shoes, but if you want me to I can get you some shoes from the closetload that I was going to take to goodwill to waste on that dead waste of a president so that you won’t have to sacrifice something so precious as your shoes!!!

I say lets get a volunteer list going for helpers to move GWB out of the white house! It cannot happen fast enough… especially with all the interviews he has been doing!

Happy New Year, both of you, from old Virginny! W’s Farewell Tour is just over the top! Every doggone network and cable channel! What’s he doing? Releasing an album of his best music of the past eight years? Puh-leeze!

But, gosh all heck, look at that trait: over-doing whatever it is. Must be something in the Republican genes cuz Palin still can’t find the “off” switch. By her own mouth she is euchering herself out of any electoral future with her party. If you have ever been to a CYO or other kind of softball game, whenever the batter doesn’t swing at what turns out to be a perfect chance for a home run, the coach (or someone) will say something like, “Take it easy. Shake it off. Don’t let it get yah! Pick your swing. The next one’s the winnah!” Palin is stuck at Running On Empty whereas McCain who actually lost a whole **** of a lot more is back at work like an adult.

Hello Helen. I just wanted to send my best wishes to Harold, and I hope he feels better soon.
Barbara, your Italian sausage soup recipe made me hungry just reading it.
I’m trying the peanut butter soup tonight, as I also have everything on hand. Can’t wait, it sounds tasty to me.
I read somewhere that Bush bought quite a few thousand acres in Paraguay because extradition is very difficult. Let’s hope he’s on his way in 4 days, so we can get busy scrubbing the stink out of this country. Oh, wait a minute, Sarah’s still here….. Somebody throw a “designer” bone in the back of Bush’s plane; maybe she’ll go for it.

I am not American I am German living since 50 years in Belgium.
When I read your blog I think Americans are on a good way now to be appreciated again. But when I stumble over blogs like this http://sargecharlie.blogspot.com/ with a Thankathon for Bush I really can’t understand anymore ! Just have a look it’s worthwhile !

Bush is taking his sweet time getting his ass hat out of the spotlight–much like his twin Palin.

While people are dying in the Near and Middle East, I am having a hard time being anything except serious and vigilant for those who are fighting and losing those battles. There is never a winner in war, right?

May January 20 usher in a new era of American responsibility. Responsibility for our actions, and personal responsibility as citizens that not ONE MORE LIFE will be taken in the name of lies and corruption.

First, well-wishes to Harold. Hope he’s feeling better and you are not sharing his cold! They can be real buggars!

Second, I would not cry if SP and GWB were gone forever to never return to my t.v. or radio…or computer…whatever. They are a tumor on the a&& of society and need to be excised and trashed. Between Palin’s whiney a&& and Bush’s fix-history tour, I want to puke.

The 20th can’t come quickly enough. And, granted, I voted for BO but I am guarded in my optimism. As usual, many promises were made that simply cannot be fulfilled. And someone needs to kick the Dem leadership in the rear and get them to vote like Dems and support our new Pres. I’m a bit sick of the “dixie-crat” mentality.

One thing that Sarah Palin is good at — getting her name and snoot in the forefront! And you can bet we will be seeing her every few weeks until 1012. As long as the media gives her screen time, she’ll take it. It will be hard for all of us to ignore her!

The Shrub’s whining excuses and “disappointments” (AKA: war crimes) are enough for shoes to be mailed to him since throwing the shoes at your TV is less than eloquent. Shrub and his evil cronies cannot be gone soon enough. May their ill-gotten gains be taken to fill in the gulf of a national debt they have left us.

As for SP, perhaps she should be impeached for callous selfishness and greed? Imagine treating people that way!

If this out-going administration is allowed to escape justice, they will learn it’s okay to do it all again as soon as possible. We and the world cannot afford that.

Hope Harold is feeling better. Thanks for the soup recipe, too. I’ll give it a try!

The idiot Palin was “the biggest user”……………she craved the spotlight and because she could not handle it (being ignorant and stupid: two different things but she is both) she placed blame on someone else. Both Katie Couric and Tina Fey were famous BEFORE Miss Moose Poop stepped into their light. I still don’t care much for Katie but she showed some courage and journalistic integrity by refusing to give Mrs Palin a “pass” like everyother journalist,reporter and conservative talker did. Mrs Palin wanted her 15 minutes of fame but did not want what came with that. I understand not wanting your children to be made fun of, but she shoved them out in front of the camera and she got exactly what comes with the territory. And, she won’t shut up and stay away. She is desperate for attention and if she has had none in two weeks she rears her ugly head and opens her mouth……….and makes a documentary!!! Who gives a crap to listen to her whine. She singlehanded took down John McCain. Is he making a documentary whining about her? Poor old stupid man.

I don’t know about you, but I will be watching ANYTHING but Dubya’s farewell. He is desperately trying to rewrite history but still admits to ordering torture and he and Shooter are proud of it. One can only hope he will end up in The Hague because our Democratic leadership, Pelosi, Reid, Feinstein, Jay Rockafeller and others were complicit in their knowledge of this when it began so Bush and his administration will never answer for what they did.

I have guarded hope for 2009. With the systematic depletion of the treasury through irresponsible and cavalier spending, Barack Obama has nothing left. All the programs and hope during the campaign have come to a screeching hault. The Dems better get on board with our new President and let him lead. If they throw in with the Repubs and continue with the roadblocks they need to be voted out or recalled. Grass roots works. I intend to call my newly
elected senator, Mark Udall and remind him that he is a Democrat NOT a Republican. America voted the Republicans out. Where is your backbone. Stand with your President.

The outlook is grim, but the one bright light is that Mrs Palin is still residing in Alaska.

Helen-
I do so hope Harold is on the mend!
Hot soup and healing on the table…
A feast.
Thank you.
—————–
Karen said-
“I’m ignoring Sarah Palin, I wish everyone else would also. You don’t call something unless you want it to come.”

While I heartily agree at many levels, I think even those from Outside have to step up and be part of the voice in the ghastly gov’s mirror telling her she is NOT the fairest in the land.
Too many of us got disgusted and ignored the voices out of Texas not long ago…

Great thing to try, peanut butter in soup. I just love the peanut butter chicken at the Chinese restaurant. Too many people ate too much PB with Jelly and (gak!) can’t get the memories of that cloying sweetness out of their mind.

Hey…SP and GWB…they can’t get their own perceived cloying sweetness out of their own minds! They both think history will prove their righteousness.
(gak! I repeat.)

Oh Helen, I am so sorry you missed Carol Burnett- she’s wonderful. Men are so pathetic when they’re sick! Hope he is feeling better.

I am so sick of Sarah Palin whining about Caroline Kennedy getting special treatment – it’s just bullshit. Palin makes no mention of her future in-law’s arrest being put off for months so it didn’t taint her election run. Sounds like special treatment to me.

Margaret and Helen, thanks for continually posting AND most especially for posting your recipes! The shrub has definitely misunderestimated his errors and I’m pretty sure he’s already responsible for killing more Iraquis than Saddam ever did. He is certainly responsible for a willful, defiant, ignorant, and arrogant killing of our folk in uniform. The ridiculous claims that he prevented another attack on American soil are groundless and empty. And the current outrageous national debt rests soundly on his head. Thanks shrub for your many contributions. Ugh!

You had to miss Carol Burnett!!! Much as I love my hubby I would have hired a babysitter and gone with a friend. She’s been my hero since I was a child. I used to sneak into the hall to watch and hope my parents wouldn’t catch me.

I’m ignoring Sarah Palin, I wish everyone else would also. You don’t call something unless you want it to come.

Being one of those pesky vegetarians I’m going to substitute in vegetable broth and try your soup. Sounds good to me!

Hope Harold is better and that you don’t catch anything yourself. Be well!

Hi Ann, Greytdog, troutay and the rest
while checking the blogs I follow I cam across a very good multimedia/video thingy explaining the roots of the middle east conflict, the thing is in German BUT WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES!
I find it very well done and to the point, anyone interessted just foillow the link through my name or the one below to my blog, after a while it will move back in postings, so you might need to check further “down”, buy I will leave it ther for you.
here again the direkt link to my blog:

Just need to tell you that Sarah did some good. By working on keeping current about her, I keep finding out other useful information and getting myself better informed about parts of the world I was pretty uninformed about – Alaska, not Russia.

Peanut butter in soup—–never heard of that but I will definitely give it a try.
Hi Margaret—Hi Harold—Hi Margarets husband!!!

Yes Sarah Palin is such a cry baby—how hard is it to answer where you read your news—that is not a ‘gotcha’ question at all. I am surprised you didnt blog on the circus freak Ann Coulter yet.
Cant wait for next Tuesday!!!

why is it so hard for gop supporters to admit mistakes or disagree with ANYTHING bush says or does? when i don’t like an obama choice or decision, i can say it. are they all sheep or are they just not able to admit mistakes like their leader?

Never heard of peanut butter and carrot soup – but hey I’m willing to give it a try. I’ll print out the recipe and give it a shot – I’m along with you for the Bush routine – man is just plain dumb! how he was ever elected president to begin with it beyond me – he is like a guy from National Lampoon
Karenhttp://karensquilting.com/blog/

Very interesting soup recipe. I might use peanut oil instead of veg oil and skip the peanut butter because carrots are already sweet and the mfg usually add sugar to peanut butter… and I am not a sweet fan. However, I think it is a great idea to have a soup day on the 20th. I didn’t vote for Obama, but I am cautiously hopeful that his administration can help us climb out of the pit. Maybe the soup will help us to forget Palin as well as W.

Have you seen the turmoil going on with the bush in Alaska? Unbelievable! I can’t even imagine trying to keep the home warm at 80degrees below zero with no money or food due to bad fishing season, horrible cold winter. Heating oil priced beyond imaginable.

There’s a big push lastnight with Mudflats, Huffington, DailyKos & many other blogs, to get them some food & heat. Meanwhile, Sarah and the PR folks aren’t even returning calls or calling it an emergency!

Check out Sarah’s latest problems…she has entire villages freezing and starving while she is whining to the media. When called she said it wasn’t an emergency and the state would not be helping, so the people had to ask the media and other residents for help.
So “anonymous bloggers” are reaching out.

Hope Harold gets well soon. I know the feeling, I have my own *Harold*. Every cold is potential pneumonia. Not so much since he has gotten the pneumonia shot but……………26 years old listening here!
Yes, peanut butter in soup? I don’t now, I’m doubtful. But then again, I’m not a big PB fan.

For all who missed the tail end of Helen and Margaret’s last blog, check this out.

It starts out with Jon Stewart mocking GWB’s comparison of himself to Abraham Lincoln, another president who was unpopular with a lot of Americans in his time…yeah, the similarities are striking! Then there are the “disappointments” of Abu Ghraib and the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq…and Jon Stewart begins a rant wherein he tries to explain how “disappointment” might not be quite the right word for these particular situations. Good stuff. Helen, I think you and Jon Stewart would get on famously!

Sarah Palin…where to begin? For the sake of women everywhere, could somebody pleeeeease make her stop talking? She’s making us all look bad!

On a lighter note, I am intrigued by your soup recipe. Thanks for sharing!

Well, Sarah Palin was the one who claimed that quote “Obama is palling around with an unrepentant domestic terrorist”.

2 problems with her statement
1. Unrepentant: not penitent or remorseful
2. Bill Ayers is now a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar.

She blatantly speaks untruths and slanders people. She complains to the media about the media. Her general knowledge doesn’t exist and makes people frightened that she’s a heartbeat away from the presidency. She doesn’t know the constitution and abuses it.

P/s: I’m not the media, nor am I a blogger – but I see videos, uncut, word for word coming out of her mouth. Evidence enough.

Helen, i cook soup every Sunday. I think I might try your recipe this week.

Sarah and fam – looks like they are in or almost in Juneau. I drove by the Gov Mansion last evening and the lights were on and SUV’s were in the driveway. The mansion has not seen any signs of life for a long time.

I just hope she comes, does her job quietly and responsibly and leaves the complaining in Wasilla.
Alaska has some issues and I hope Sarah can think rationally to deal with them.

I do not like that she is now trying to strip some Beluga Whales of Environmental Protections so Big Oil can drill.

oohh, love the soup recipe. I’ll dig up one of my faves up and share it tomorrow.

I’m starting to collect soup recipes: 1. because my wonderful baby sibs totally ignored my strict instructions for no Christmas gifts and bought me a lovely Le Creuset RED porcelain-covered dutch oven (yes, I’m bragging) that is perfect for soup and 2. because I’m probably moving back to the Midwest in the next couple of months and staying with Dad for awhile (nothing says downward mobility like moving home in your 50s). But he loves soup, so I want to beef up my soup inventory. Please share!

Sarah Palin needs to stop crying about how horrible she’s been treated by the media. Is she ever going to realize that if she goes back to Wasilla and her moose shooting ways, the media will get bored and find someone else to pick on?

Everytime she goes on some show to complain about it, she’s perpetuating it.

Does she think that in 2012 if she runs that we are all going to forget about her crybaby ways?

Go back to Wasilla, and before you go, one last thing, we want to know what happened to all of those designer clothes.

Hope Harold feels better soon, and yes Tuesday can’t come soon enough.
About GWB ‘magical history tour’ it seems to pay off for him, since his aproval rating soard from 25 % in November to 34% now.
Can you imagine that there are still 34% of Americans who think he actually did a great job? Are those people living on a different planet? It seems as if he repeats his ‘lies’ and imagined good deeds long and often enough, people actually will start to believe him.
Btw, have you noticed that Dick Cheney has been seen more out in the open during the last 2 weeks than during the last 4 years?

I just hope that if one of those croonies travels abroad will get arrested for war crimes, and for crimes against humanity.

Looking forward to Tuesday ..
All the Best to you and get well soon Harold